The House On Avian Way
by Zebeckras
Summary: Webfoot continuity. What exactly is lurking in Beth's house? Many years ago, something happened at Halloween, and now the neighbourhood of Avian Way will learn that the dead are not always quiet...
1. Prologue & Act I

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

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_Author's Notes, 2009: Greetings readers! This fic follows "All About Elizabeth", currently in progress. Since I finished this fic in 2005, then wrote the two stories that come before it, some details in this fic have changed. So I've rewritten it in a few spots, just to reflect that. There ARE minor spoilers for how AAE turns out, and I can't promise that a handful of things might change yet again before I finish that one at last... no plans, mind you, but who knows? However, this version is more current. Enjoy!_

* * *

Prologue:

A match was struck. Sulphur and magnesium flared into a flame that quickly lit the wicks of a number of tall black candles. The slender white fingers holding the match shook it out and dropped it into an immaculate wastebasket, arranged the candles carefully one last time, then smoothed down the body of the flowing white robe that their avian owner was clad in.

She let out a nervous breath and turned to the feline behind her. Unlike her, he was dressed in hip casual wear: tweed pants, a red shirt with white stitching on the details, even the modern wing-tipped shoes. Despite the darkness of the room he was still wearing his sunglasses, which she had only seen him without once or twice before.

"You look ridiculous," she told him.

"Hey, I'm not the one wearin' a sheet, babes," he shot back, grinning around a toothpick. "'Sides, this is the height of fashion today."

She sighed. "I mean with the sunglasses. _I_ can barely see in here. You don't need those right now, Richie."

His expression was indignant even through the tinted glass of the spectacles. "Like I said. Height of fashion."

"Fine," she grumbled, and crossed her arms tightly over her body. "Sorry. I'm just... tense." Truth was, she'd never felt so nervous in her life.

"S'natural, babes." She glared at him, and he corrected himself. "Sorry - Stella. It's natural. But you're gonna do great, trust me! You been practicin' all year - you're the one with the talk that's gonna raise this boogeyman, an' then I'm gonna talk to 'im an' ask all the questions. It works out right, we'll have a business goin' in less than a month."

Stella frowned. Somehow this just didn't seem right. She checked the candles and the pentagram on the floor - they looked just as they did in every book she'd read. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "Okay... I guess you're right. Let's go."

"Gimme a minute, babes, I gotta hit the head." She grimaced as Richie left the room - he was so crude sometimes. Alone in the room, she shivered a little as the candles flickered and cast shadows that never stayed still on the wall.

Mediums weren't supposed to be scared. Even first-time mediums were supposed to radiate implacable calm. Evidently she was a pretty poor medium because she didn't feel like there was a calm bone in her body. What was she doing here?! Halloween night at nearly 2 am and she was up in the back room of her house raising the dead. Well, the spirits of the dead - okay, _a_ spirit, but it was essentially the same thing. Richie had such faith in her - but considering Richie's general mental aptitude, she wasn't sure that meant much of anything.

When the hand came down on her shoulder, she shrieked.

"Whoa! Cool off, babes! You supposed to be so jumpy?"

She whirled on him. "You did that on PURPOSE," she said angrily, "and I think it's perfectly understandable that I be jumpy!"

"Okaaaay," Richie said doubtfully, leaning back against the wall. "Anyway - let's go, huh?"

Nodding, she breathed, "Right." _Here goes nothing,_ she thought, and knew it was a lie.

It began with chanting, words from the book repeated over and over in a rhythm that was nearly musical. Her arms were held wide, as if to embrace the spirit world, but words in the chant protected her by confining those she summoned to the pentagram below. The pure white robe represented the purity of her self and of the chant, and she believed in it fervently as the flames on the candles flickered, grew higher, and began to bend by some unfelt wind.

They blazed up fiercely with a final verse of the chant.

A shadow rested in the confines of the pentagram, hovering a few inches above the floor, dark as night but without form or substance. Stella spoke the first verse of a new chant, and the spirit opened its eyes slowly and looked at them. The effect was chilling - two large, clear eyes within a mass of dark nothing. Stella felt her stomach freeze, but she held eye contact with the spirit and waited for Richie to address it.

Richie, however, had other ideas. "Oh, wow," he said in a frightened whisper from behind her. "It's - it's real, isn't it? Wow."

"It's real," she said quietly, and felt cold all over. Those eyes were glaring at her. "And I don't think it's happy. _Do_ something, Richie."

"I..."

The spirit didn't move, didn't even blink, but she knew it did something, and a second later a candle fell over. Another followed, and a table skittered across the room, shrieking loudly in protest. "Richie! _DO_ something!"

"I - I'm sorry, Stella!" he yelled, and ran out of the room. The spirit's eyes became stronger, and she heard Richie yell somewhere down the hall, then silence.

Something flew over her head. Oh, this wasn't going the way it was supposed to at all. Putting her anger at Richie's abandonment aside, and trying to quell her fear that something had happened to him, she searched her mind for what the book had said to do. She knelt and bowed her head. "O Spirit of the Unknown - Your humble servant begs you -"

Another candle fell. The spirit's intangible mass began to seep from the pentagram, and she knew she was out of time. Frantically, she tried a banishment spell. "I revoke your invitation to this plane! Begone!" she cried, but it did nothing. The mass continued to spread. Her heart in her throat, Stella let her fear overtake her. She stood and ran out of the room, and the walls reached for her as she went.

"_RICHIE!!_" she screamed as she fled down the hall, twice as long as it had been five minutes ago, and the floors curved beneath her. "RICHIE IF YOU'RE HERE YOU BETTER DO SOMETHIIIIING!" _I'm going to kill him the next time I see him,_ she thought, _unless of course we're already dead._

The banister of the stairs felt alive, snakelike, under her hand. She pounded down the steps as quickly as she could, feeling the unhappy spirit close on her heels and wondering how long she could keep ahead of it. The walls downstairs were like a mouth, a jaw, curving around her with a possessive hunger. Richie must have made it out - no sign of him, not even of a body.

She couldn't get to the door - tables flew at her, the walls bulged, and she felt herself getting dizzy. _Have to keep my head..._ She dashed for the kitchen, grabbed a vase on her way there and swung at any object that flew at her. There was a back door - she'd try that...

It was a mistake to go into the kitchen. Utensils were flying through the air, and several embedded themselves in the wall as she came in. When she stepped to the side, she was raised into the air as easily as if she were a doll. Vertigo ensued as she was spun around, and finally she screamed, "I CAST YOU OUT!" and fell back to the ground.

The activity didn't stop, but she was encouraged by that response. Mentally she ran through any spell she knew that might end this and tried each of the most probable as she ran back into the living room, dimly aware that she was sobbing. She tripped over her robe, and the vase was wrenched out of her hands as she fell. "Oh, this can't be happening," she moaned, tears running down her face "This can't be _happening_!!"

She pulled herself to her feet, and the door was in front of her but moving farther away somehow, and she ran for it as the floor buckled beneath her. Finally, just as the boards dropped from below her, she jumped at it and found herself clinging to the doorknob. It wouldn't turn. "No," she sobbed, "No, no, no, no!" She let go. The drop to the floor was surprisingly minimal all of a sudden. She ran again without knowing where to.

She stopped in the centre of the living room, lightening flashing around her, and she didn't know her house anymore. Images were before her - people - she felt drugged with fear. Sobbing, turning about blindly, she screamed "DEMON BEGONE! I cast you _OUT_!"

But there was no response, not even a pause, and as the lightening drew closer to her, her feathers stood on edge; and then it hit, and she screamed and disappeared and had no thoughts for a very long time.

Upstairs, the spirit hovered, surrounded again by quiet. The candles went out. The mass pulled close together, concentrated in a corner, then faded.

The eyes closed. All was dark.

* * *

Chapter 1

The room was flooded with light, and dust motes suspended in the sunbeams were clearly outlined as they floated behind the bookshelf in the left corner.

A figure entered, his arms full of a stack of fabrics that towered so high they thoroughly blocked his vision. He tried peering around the side and promptly stumbled over something in the middle of the floor.

"Oh! Watch out for the rug, the edge of it tends to curl upwards!" the woman behind him said belatedly.

"Gotcha," he answered, and stared down between his feet to try and see whatever else might be on the floor before he tripped over again.

He walked into the table before he saw the legs, and let out a pained "Oof!"

"Launchpad! Oooh, that looked like it hurt, are you okay?" The woman rushed to his side, put down the much smaller stack of fabrics she was carrying, and took the ones his fingers were now curling into.

He gave a tense nod. "Sure," he managed, though it was choked. "I'm okay. Is this where ya wanted 'em, Beth?"

"Yeah... I'm sorry, I didn't know you couldn't see! You should have made me carry more!"

"What're you talkin' about? I'm fine," he argued ineffectually.

Beth sighed, looking at him sternly but somehow fondly, and smiled a little. "Too much of a gentleman, that's what you are," she said, and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "I can get you some ice to put on your leg if it still-"

"Nah, that's okay. I'm fine, really," he repeated, grinning. "It feels better now." She seemed appeased, and he looked about the bright little room they were standing in, taking it in. "Ya know, I think this room'll be nice for sewin'."

Brightening, Beth said, "Won't it? That's just what I thought last time I was in here to dust. I mean, I've got all these extra rooms, I already have a guest room, this one was just going to waste and I finally thought 'You know, I should move the sewing machine out of the basement and put it in here!' Eventually I can get one of those dress dummies and I'll really be able to make some nice things. It's so well-lit in here, too, don't you think? Although now that I look at those curtains maybe they're a little _too_ blue. It kind of takes away from the overall cheer of the room..."

She wandered off to examine the curtains in a bit more detail, and Launchpad shrugged. The whole place looked fine to him, but... "Is it always chilly like this in here?"

"Yeah. That's the only downside. I don't come in often enough to know how it is year-round, but it might be one of those rooms with bad ventilation that's always hot in the summer and cold in the winter. I mean, it's the end of October, but it's not this cold any place else in the house..."

Launchpad shivered mildly. "Kind of a weird cold, don'tcha think?"

Shrugging, Beth joined him at the sewing table. "I don't know. But if it gets worse I won't be able to work in here."

"Well, hey, lemme know. It might be the heating, an' I'll see if I can fix it up, if ya want."

"That'd be great." She sighed, looking up at the ceiling and walls as though she could find a visible source of the temperature controls. "I hope it warms up just a little in here over the next few days. I really need to work on my costume for the Muddlefoots' party."

"Yeah. They give the greatest parties... You shoulda come last year."

She smiled. "Launchpad, I had just bought the house, I hadn't moved in yet, I barely knew anyone and I wasn't exactly a party animal type, you remember."

"Ya knew me. I went."

"Okay, okay, Mister Persuasion. I'm going this year, is that enough?"

He grinned. "Maybe. So whatcha gonna be?"

"Um..." Beth blushed and ran a finger over the sewing table as if checking it for dust. "I can't tell you. I'm not sure that I'll wear it yet."

Launchpad remained silent, but his interest was piqued. If she was blushing and not sure she'd wear it, he had a feeling it was something he really wanted to see.

"So how about you?" she asked in turn, her attention still on the sewing table; it looked as though she had actually found something to examine, because she'd lost her evasive tone of a moment before. "What's the 'in' costume for pilots this year?"

"Awww, well, I don't really know yet." He ducked his head a little bashfully when she lifted her head to look at him, eyes wide.

"You don't KNOW?" she said, almost incredulously. "But it's the 24th, Launchpad! The party is in like, four days!"

"Yeah, I know! I just don't have any ideas! I thought about goin' as a pilot but DW said that was kinda... what was it? Redundant."

From Beth's expression, she seemed to share the sentiment; but she smiled mildly. "You should ask Gosalyn. I bet she has more costume ideas than she can use in a lifetime."

"That's what I'm afraid of." He sighed, then grinned.

She backed toward the door, beckoning him a little. "C'mon downstairs, I think I have some iced tea left to use up." Nodding, he followed her down the hall, but paused at the top of the stairs with his hand flat against the wall. Halfway down the steps, Beth turned to look back up at him. "What's the matter?"

He frowned. "The wall. It's awful warm."

"How do you mean?" she asked, looking puzzled, so he motioned for her to come up and put her hand next to his.

"You probably do have a heating problem in the house," he said. "I'll take a look at it for ya."

She left her hand on the wall, a crease in her forehead. "I never noticed that before. Weird. It wasn't like this last winter..."

"Might be recent."

Looking up at him at last, she shrugged. "I can just call someone," she said, making her way down the stairs again, and he followed.

"I wouldn't letcha do that! More money than it's worth."

"But I don't want to trouble-"

Launchpad stopped her. "It's no trouble."

"Well then," she said matter-of-factly as they reached the kitchen, "I'm just gonna have to pay you back somehow."

"Oh?"

"Mm-hmm," she murmured, her voice sing-song. "In some way you'll really liiiiiike."

"Um... peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?" he guessed.

She smiled and tilted her head, the very picture of cuteness, and his chest seemed to do a funny little twinge. "Yep!" She handed him a glass of iced tea, then took her own over to the table. "I'd make something else but you know how I am at cooking..."

"Hey, no problemo," he said dismissively. "It'll be worth it just to see ya in your Halloween costume."

Beth blushed a bright crimson and put a hand over her face, smirking. "You don't even know what it IS."

That was all the confirmation he needed; he _really_ wanted to see this costume. "That's the point," he said, winking, and Beth smacked him lightly on the arm before turning her attention to stirring her iced tea. She was still blushing. He considered her, taking a moment to watch her while her gaze was elsewhere; things had changed between them, and he still wasn't entirely sure just how much, but he thought that it was mostly good.

Beth had been changing a lot, herself. She was seeing a therapist, and she talked about it a lot. Some of it was kind of personal, but a lot of it was actually really interesting - things he'd never thought to think of, and some things about her that he'd never known, like that she'd worked at a library in Duckburg during the same time that he'd been working for Mr. McDee. Mostly though she just sort of used him as a sounding board, and lately the phrase "my therapist said..." had been coming up a lot less and was replaced by "I was thinking..." and "what if I...?"

He'd worried, at first, that she was going to totally reinvent herself and end up as someone completely different from the woman he knew and loved. But Beth was Beth, and it seemed like even if she wasn't particularly happy about that fact, it was still true. He had tried to get her to realize that she didn't need to be someone else, she just needed to learn to like who she was; he needn't have bothered to try, because she reached that conclusion on her own a few weeks after returning home from her extended stay at her parents'.

He hadn't realized at first that it was all about more than just DW telling her flat-out he wasn't interested. Apparently there was a lot more to it than that, a whole lifetime she'd never told him about, or anyone else for that matter. Stuff with her parents, stuff with old friends - she had trust issues, she kept expecting that everyone was going to leave her. Once again, he'd had a hint of that when she'd finally talked to him about his feelings for her - there was an awful lot of emphasis on losing his friendship, which seemed weird, because as far as Launchpad was concerned being in a relationship with Beth would be like friendship times ten. But you couldn't push Beth; you couldn't just say "I would never leave you," you had to show her or something.

And so, here they were. Two months since DW had rejected her, a couple weeks less since she'd (gently and sweetly) rejected Launchpad herself, and he knew more about her than he had learned in the whole year before that. Launchpad, for his part, was quietly courting her. He didn't think she knew. Along with her statement "I don't love you like that" had come an unspoken need to show him how much she _did_ care for him; so after a brief period of awkwardness, during which he'd learned not to mention his feelings for her unless she brought them up (which she never did), they'd resumed their friendship. Once they were comfortably spending time together a few times a week, he'd gradually upped the time to nearly every day, a couple of hours at least.

The upshot of all of this was that they were very nearly dating, but Beth didn't realize it at all. He took her out - to movies, to restaurants - mostly to keep her busy and make sure she didn't just isolate herself in her house; he bought her things, books and stuff, every so often. Mainly, he listened, because she needed someone to listen now, and because he was interested. Although nothing had happened between them in the weeks that had gone by, she touched him an awful lot more than she had before: leaning on him, rubbing his shoulders, and from time to time even holding his hand (which, inexplicably for such a minor contact, felt amazing). She grew uncomfortable if he so much as looked at her like he found her attractive, but at the same time she'd developed a manner of teasing him from time to time that bordered on flirtatious.

It was confusing. It was also really, really great.

She shifted, and he quickly looked away; if he was caught staring, she was likely to go all introverted again, and he wanted to avoid that.

But her demeanour changed, regardless. She sighed and straightened up a bit. "Hey... um, is, um... Is Morgana going to be at the party this weekend? 'Cause I, I know the Muddlefoots know her and all and it would just... make sense I guess, and um... I just want to know, in advance..." This was certainly much more like the Beth of old, as she was now even picking at the tablecloth with trembling fingers.

"Uh, I dunno," he said thoughtfully. "DW said she was invited, but he doesn't know yet if she's comin'."

"Do you think she would?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. There's probably some kinda witch thing goin' on about now... I mean, it's nearly Halloween, she's probably got somethin' to do. She's too busy to see DW half the time he asks her out." Beth sighed heavily, and he wished he could take that last sentence back; sworn off of love or not, the subject of Darkwing and his lovelife was still a touchy one with Beth. "Uh, she probably won't show up," he finished weakly.

"I guess I seem like a total jerk," Beth said quietly. Launchpad reassured her that it wasn't the case, but she still looked unhappy. "I don't have any reason in the world not to like her, and I don't _not_ like her, you know? I just... I'm just not really comfortable around her. That's all."

"Hey, I gotcha. Don't worry about it. You'll get used to her... I did."

Beth looked at him, trying to convey somehow that that wasn't what she meant, but gave up.

A little while later, she was walking Launchpad to the door when a very distinct *thump* was heard from upstairs. Both looked upwards momentarily, then at each other. Beth shrugged. "It's always something."

"Well, lemme know about havin' the heating checked, okay?"

"Sure," she said, and they stood together for about half a minute, in silence, before she smiled awkwardly. "Um... see ya?"

"Oh, right. Sorry." He chuckled nervously, gave her a little wave, and set off down her sidewalk. She watched from the door for a moment before shutting it behind him. Then she headed upstairs to figure out what had made the noise.

It hadn't sounded too heavy, so there probably wasn't anything damaged, thankfully. She checked in each room as she went down the hall, finding nothing out of place at first glance; by the time she reached the end of the hallway, before peering into the new sewing room, she had very nearly convinced herself that she was going to have to either look much more closely in each room or simply let the matter go.

But as it turned out, it was the sewing room that had been the source of the noise. Several of the fabrics on the top of the higher stack had fallen, as one, to the ground. The remainder weren't the least bit tilted in their pile.

Odd, she thought. Despite the chill in the room, there was no draft or an open window, so they couldn't have blown over. And the pile seemed to be quite level, so they shouldn't have tipped off. Oh well - maybe they were just overbalanced when she'd put them down. She sighed, shaking her head, and fingered the white fabric that would go into her costume for a moment before stooping to pick up the other sheets, refolding them, and replacing them evenly in a new stack on the table.

Satisfied, she gave them a small pat, and was just on her way out the door when she heard a floppy *thud*, followed almost instantly by a second. After a brief pause, she turned back to find that - sure enough - they'd fallen again. This time, more had fallen from the taller stack, and the entire new stack she'd set up was now on the floor.

With an aggravated sigh, she reentered the room and bent to pick them up again - but stopped. Something seemed... odd... She shivered as if a breeze had gone through the room, and suddenly felt claustrophobic. With a quick breath, she scooped up all the fabrics and dumped them in an untidy lump on the sewing table, well away from the edge, then made her way in wide footsteps out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her.

Standing out in the hallway, she paused to catch her breath, and suddenly felt incredibly silly. "What a dork," she muttered, blushing, and shook her head as she walked down to the kitchen to finish off the iced tea. Later on, she decided, she would come back up and work on the costume.

* * *

Hallway. It was blurry - and shapes, shapes were moving.

No... Where was she?

She turned a corner - running - she knew that corner, didn't she? It was familiar, but different, jutting out at an angle as though it were reaching for her. A voice followed her, mumbling words she didn't understand. It sounded so far away but no matter how far she went, it didn't go away, it just kept mumbling in a monotone -

And she was scared.

Another corner, another hallway - again, familiar - shadows like knives, the angles were so sharp, and...

She ran harder, toward a figure at the end of the hallway. A woman in white, too far away for her to recognize, but she ran, because she had to know who it was... She ran because she was being called, pulled. It was preordained, she knew she would go, just as she knew she would never reach the woman.

With a gasp, Beth jerked awake, blinking in the grey darkness just before dawn, trying to shake the visions of the sharp shadows from her dream.

Somewhere down the hall came a muted but heavy *thump*.

She forgot to breathe for a few moments, and her heart hammered in her ears as she decided she would wait until tomorrow morning to find out what that noise was. Even as she chided herself for being silly, she pulled the covers up to her eyes and tried to go back to sleep. 


	2. Act II

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

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Chapter Two, pt 1:

Beth stepped into the room and immediately felt chillier than before. It was like she had stepped right through a wall of cold. She ignored it and instead stared in momentary stillness at the pile of fabrics on the floor. After a second, her eyes flicked to the overturned boxes scattered across the room, the threads unwound across the rug, the equipment that had slid all the way under the end table.

A moment later, with an exaggerated sigh, she knelt to pick the sewing supplies up. Nothing stayed put in this room. It was downright unnerving. It wasn't just that the fabrics kept falling no matter how expertly she arranged them, or the fact that it always felt like a window was open in here, or that the door kept swinging shut - she stopped to catch it with her hand as it began to do just that, and propped it back open. It was that **anything** she put in here was in a different place later. It was like her inanimate possessions didn't like being left in this room. She had _shut_ the door to the closet, and those boxes had been stacked inside perfectly straight. How could they have fallen over like this?

It had set her efforts at sewing back a number of days, since every time she came into the room to get started she ended up having to spend twenty minutes rearranging everything she'd rearranged the day before - or even just a few hours ago. The Muddlefoots' Halloween party was the next night - she'd have to really set herself to it today and tomorrow and finally get her costume _done_.

The door swung closed with a quiet *creak*, and she let her shoulders slump in defeat. "Fine," she said aloud, with the oddest feeling that she really was talking to _someone_ and not just the door to her room. "Do whatever you want. I don't care anymore. If you want to be shut, be shut."

The silence that followed her outburst was waiting to be broken. With a small shiver, she let out a breath, realizing she'd been waiting for a reply. _What would I have done if I'd **gotten** one?_ she thought, and shivered again, then felt stupid. It really was cold in that room.

As she settled the spools of thread back in their box, she blinked and shook her head. The walls - she'd had the strangest sensation that they were moving. Shifting. She looked around nervously, felt dizzy, and nearly fell backwards. Great - vertigo. _The ventilation in here must be almost nonexistant,_ she thought. _Better get out of here before I pass out._ She scooped up the fabrics and, on a whim, stuffed them into a nearby trunk. "And stay there," she muttered, trying to convince herself that no one would answer her because she was the only person in the house. Then she picked up her costume material and supplies with the sudden inspiration to work on them in the living room.

She felt better the moment she stepped out of the room. Putting a hand to her forehead she found she'd been sweating, of all things. "Oh, honestly," she said under her breath, and started down the hallway, then stopped as a chill ran down her back. In a few quick motions she turned back and pulled the door forcefully shut, then locked it behind her and sped down the hallway before she could convince herself that it was a silly thing to do.

Still, with every step she took away from that room, she felt herself relaxing. "You, Elizabeth Marilynn, have been watching too many Halloween specials," she told herself loudly, confidently, and allowed a self-deprecatory laugh to escape her as she brushed her fingers along the walls of the hallway towards the stairs.

She paused at the landing, blinking, and slowly drew her fingers away from the wall in barely-filtered disgust. It _was_ warm... warmer than it had been before, and slightly damp, and... it felt _awful_. Not like a wall in a good house should, at all. _Like it's alive-_ she thought, then immediately blushed, feeling stupid. Now she really had **proof** she'd been watching too many Halloween specials... Alive, indeed.

Nonetheless, she walked down the stairs staying as far from the wall as she could get.

It probably was the heating, like Launchpad said. She should really get around to having him come over and check it out... Oh, what the heck. At least see if he was free today...

Herb Muddlefoot was decorating his front yard when she passed him on the way to the Mallards' house. "Herb!" she called, waving from the sidewalk. He turned to face her, grappling with several long, hairy spider legs, and she shuddered. Perfect.

"Beth! How's life treatin' ya?" he called back jubilantly.

"Oh, just..." She tried not to stare at the fake spider that appeared to be strangling Herb before trying to swallow him, "Disgusting. I-I mean, great."

Grinning, he turned back and indicated the decorations in the yard. A scarecrow wearing a vampire mask sat near the front door, tombstones were propped up on the lawn, and there was a hanging skeleton ready to be strung up. "Ya like the new look for the place?"

"Quite a view you've got there," she nodded, genuinely amused by the entire effect. No wonder they kept winning the neighbourhood decoration contests each year. "So, the party's gonna be big, huh?"

"Oh, you betcha, sweetie!" he said, turning back to the spider and tucking it up in rain gutter of the house. Beth made a mental note to avoid that side of the house if at all possible. "Even better than last year - were you here last year?"

"I hadn't moved in yet," she said. "But the Wrightsons weren't here either, remember?"

Herb chuckled and shrugged. "Aw, those guys never came to the Halloween parties. Fact, if I 'member, they went away pretty much every year 'round this time. Funny time ta take a vacation, I always thought, but..."

"Hm. To each their own, I guess," Beth said with a shrug, and fidgeted a little bit. She never knew how to end a conversation. "Well, I - I've gotta keep going, um... See you tomorrow night?"

"You better show up, kiddo! You dunno what you'll be missin' if ya don't!" He waved at her, and stepped back to look at the spider from its perch on the gutter. Beth grimaced, decided he must have the effect right if it bothered her that much, and went along her way.

She'd just reached the door and was about to knock when it opened and Drake nearly ran into her. She blinked. He did the same, and they simply stared at one another for a matter of moments. _Say something, stupid!_ she told herself mentally - this was too awkward to begin with and just getting worse by the second. But even as she pressed the edges of her bill together into a thin line, she really couldn't do much more than wring her hands and avoid looking directly at his face.

It really wasn't a surprise that Drake recovered first. He cleared his throat in an odd little coughing noise. "Beth. Nice to see you..."

"Oh you too!" she said cheerfully, putting too much effort into it, and waved her hand in an effort to seem breezy. "Yeah, we really haven't - um, talked much - since..."

"Right, right. That's really too bad." He paused. "Gotta love that talking, huh."

She giggled, entirely inappropriately, and the next second wished she could take it back. Suddenly her face was hot and red, her eyes were burning, and she looked at her feet. "Yeah, well, considering how the last one went..." she mumbled in a tight voice. Drake's feet shifted, and a second later he pushed past her.

"I've really got to go. We need bread."

"Right." She didn't face him, but worked extensively on resisting the almost overwhelming urge to turn around and run home **now**. "See you."

That had been... painful, she mused as she stepped inside the house. Not in an emotional way, not really, just in a tension way. Well, sort of in an emotional way - they'd been such friends before, they really had, and lately when they'd bumped into each other they'd even started getting along a little better again, and then she'd gone and said **that** - why had she said **that**? Now he probably thought she still lov - still had feelings for him, when really she was over him, she really was. It was important that he know that she was, because it was important for their friendship that he think that - that he **know** it, really. It was true. She was over him.

Okay, _almost_ over him. It was only natural that there be some residue of feeling. After all, she'd lov - had **feelings** for him as long as she'd known him. But it wasn't _love_, that was for certain, and in any case, she was through with love. She was better off that way. Her therapist had agreed that it was time for her to spend some time focusing on _Beth_ instead of on everyone else.

She wouldn't have even been seeing a therapist, of course, if not for her mother. Once she'd left home, her mother had insisted that Beth take Dr. Mortimer's referral and keep seeing someone in St. Canard, so now Beth had her very own weekly appointments with Melissa "Missy" Quillson. And that had to be the least therapist-sounding name Beth had ever heard, but she didn't say so, because one could probably say that someone named Beth Webfoot didn't seem like they'd be cut out for writing computer software, and there you go.

In any case, Beth didn't know how much stock she really put into her therapist's theories, but they were interesting, in any case. Apparently, if she believed Melissa, Beth craved acceptance by everyone - to the point where, if she didn't have it from someone, she obsessed over it. Supposedly that was what explained her infatuation with Drake - she had the approval of everyone else in his family, but not him, so she'd obsessed over him and adored him and put him up on a pedestal or something. But now she had his approval - she _knew_ she did, really, logically speaking anyway - so she could let go.

Even if it wasn't romantic approval. Who needed that, anyway? Beth time, that's what it was about - Beth time. Not Beth-and-someone-else-in-love time.

She sighed heavily, then swallowed around the lump in her throat and checked the kitchen for Launchpad.

He emerged through the swinging door a moment before she reached it, carrying a bag of chips, a can of dip, and a bowl of popcorn. Beth jumped back, and he blinked. "Hey!"

"You have plans?" she asked, disappointment showing in her voice, and she mentally kicked herself a moment later. What - did she expect him to be at her beck and call?

Launchpad shrugged. "Oh, nothin' much. Just thought I'd sit down an' see what's on TV this afternoon... the TQ's all taken care of, I got the grocery shoppin' done, thought I'd relax. Why, what's up?"

Beth felt guilty. "Oh, nothing, nothing!" she said sheepishly, and in her embarrassment she led him to the couch and forced him to sit down. "I just wondered if, well, maybe sometime this weekend when you have the _time_... Um, well, you know when you offered to take a look at the furnace in my house...?"

"Oh, sure!" Launchpad's face cleared in understanding. "Heck, I can do that for ya now if ya want!"

She shook her head. "No! You just stay and relax right now, and-"

Chuckling, Launchpad stood up. "No trouble at all, Beth. I can watch TV any time!" She looked guilty, so he grinned. "'Sides, DW's havin' a slow week for some reason an' there's just nothin' to do!" At that, she brightened.

"Oh, Launchpad _thank_ you! You're the best!" she exclaimed, and had to resist the urge to throw her arms around him in a hug. _Geez, give the poor guy a break,_ she thought to herself, almost blushing, and followed him to the door.

In all honesty, Launchpad really was rather relieved to have something to do; the sidekicking gig was _not_ kicking much lately. But when it came to the furnace, he really wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to be looking for once he got there. Everything looked more or less in place, as far as he knew; but he hadn't really studied the build of furnaces before or anything, and he had a feeling he could easily miss something. He hoped it wasn't related to the pipes or anything in the house, since he was pretty sure there was no way he could take care of that, but he kept fiddling around inside the machine a bit and making any changes he thought might help.

When he came back upstairs an hour or so later, she jumped up and gave him a glass of fruit punch right off, beaming. "Find anything?"

"Not really," he admitted, feeling sort of sheepish. "I shoulda told you - it's not really my area of expertise or anything. I mean - I know how they work an' all, but I don't know if I can find the little things that might make a big problem."

Beth looked uncertain for a second, then said, "But - it looked okay, from what you saw?"

"Well, there were a few loose connections an' stuff. I tightened 'em up, made sure it was all runnin' clean, that sorta thing. It really didn't look like there was anything majorly wrong with it... Looked like it was runnin' just like most other furnaces. At least the ones I know."

She smiled. "You're the _best_. Do you want anything while you're here?" she asked, and smiled becomingly. He didn't answer for a few moments, just looked at her a bit distractedly, and she waved her hand in front of his face a little. "Launchpad?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, nah. I'm fine." He shook his head a little, and looked embarrassed; Beth decided against asking about it.

She turned back to the couch, and he noticed that she had a lot of her sewing supplies out and was working on something in the living room. "Hey, what's that?"

In a flash, Beth darted to her coffee table and scooped up what she could. "ACK! No no no, you can't look!" she said quickly, grinning. "Halloween stuff! No advance knowledge!"

"Aw, c'mon. Just a peek-"

"Noooo!" she said, then giggled. He wondered if he smiled differently when he thought about how much he loved her, or if he just looked the way he always did. "You find out tomorrow anyway."

"Awww." He pouted, leaning against the couch, and Beth tried to look stern.

"Tomorrow. I better take this stuff back upstairs anyway... I thought I'd work on it down here until we got the furnace looked at, but I'll do the rest tomorrow."

When she bounded back down the stairs, he was by the door, about to go. She looked at him in a sort of expectant silence for a moment, and he looked back, recognizing the look she wore when she was slowly getting around to saying something. Finally she blurted out, "Wanna stay for dinner?"

"Really?"

She blushed and pressed the forefingers of her hands together. "It's just sorta, well, to pay you back for the furnace thing and all, and besides which I like having you over..." His heart skipped a beat. What was she leading up to? "It's just sort of... I don't know, the house seems so _empty_ lately, I really want company."

Oh. He grinned anyway. "Why don'tcha invite Gos over? Then you'll wonder how you ever thought the house seemed empty!"

She chuckled, but looked a little pained. "So - you don't want to stay? I mean, that's fine, I just need to know so that I don't make too much for dinner-"

"I'd love to stay," he said gently, then reached for her hand, chickened out, and fumbled awkwardly in her direction before touching her shoulder briefly and then letting go.

"Great! We can watch a movie or something!" she said, perking up instantly, then frowned for a moment before saying, "You know, I think I _will_ ask Gos over. The more the merrier, right? Do you think we should order in? I mean, I can heat something up for us two, but if Gos is here she'll probably want a lot more, and I think maybe pizza. Everyone likes pizza, right? I guess I should actually call over there first and see if she can make it..."

Launchpad sat down on the couch and waited as she started to dial, hung up the phone, then started over again two more times before actually making a call. Once she actually did, at first he wasn't sure whom she'd ended up dialing, as she didn't seem particularly familiar with the speaker. "Oh, um - hi. Oh, gee, not a lot... yeah... Did you get the bread? That's good... What kind was it? Oh. I usually get... wheat..." She trailed off, was silent for a moment, then said, "So um - is Gosalyn there?"

Ah - so she'd called home. She must be talking to DW. Poor Beth... He turned around to look at her, and sure enough, she was flushed quite red, fiddling with the phone cord, an unhappy look on her face. Wow... it had all turned out so bad lately. He waved to get her attention and gave her a big smile. She looked a bit happier after that.

"No, actually, I've already got Launchpad over. We just wanted to know if Gosalyn wanted to come, have some pizza, watch a movie or two if she doesn't have too much homework -" She cut off, looking puzzled, and cupped her hand over the phone. In a loud whisper, she said to Launchpad, "He's asking why he's not invited!"

Launchpad shrugged. "So invite him!" Beth's eyes went wide. "Uh, ya don't have to. That's okay."

"No, no, I don't mind. I want to. Good idea." She got back on the phone with Drake and in a shaky voice said, "Well, we can get extra pizza. Come on over. Okay. See you guys then." And she hung up rapidly, trembling a little and looking both scared and excited. "I didn't think he'd ever want to see me again!" she confessed. "Maybe I should clean up. Is the house clean enough?"

"It's perfect." Launchpad stood and forced her to the couch. If he didn't do something she was going to worry herself sick. "I'll call for pizza. You sit there an' don't move, okay?"

"I could just dust the coffee table-"

"DON'T MOVE." He chuckled and went to the phone, watching her the entire time. She fidgeted, looking nervous, and finally sat on her hands.

* * *

"I thought we were here to watch _movies_," Gosalyn said expressively, helping herself to another couple of pieces of pizza as Beth flipped around on the TV in search of something to watch. "It shouldn't be that hard to find one, there're, like, a million on!"

"I'm looking for something that doesn't involve blood or razors or strange, hostile manifestations," Beth answered without diverting her attention from the screen.

Drake sighed. "You're not going to find much of anything at this time of year, Beth. If you let Gos pick, you at least know which _level_ of horror you can get..."

Beth stood her ground. "I don't want ANY horror!" She kept flipping, starting the procession of numbers over again at 02. "It's the last thing I'm in the mood for."

This unfortunately caught Gosalyn's attention. "What? Why?" Beth flushed and didn't answer her. "Oooh! _Nightmare on 13th St_ - awww, I couldn't even see which one it was. You know, it _is_ Halloween..."

Shutting off the television, Beth stood up. "Well, there's nothing on. How 'bout I go get my copy of _Casablanca_ and we watch that?" Launchpad loved the idea, although Gosalyn looked as if she thought she might die. Drake simply rested his head on his hand, his expression the usual one of resigned ennui. Beth wondered why he'd wanted to come over in the first place.

Once Beth had gone upstairs, Gosalyn turned the TV back on. "I don't even know which channel it was on," she muttered, flipping around as quickly as she could before Beth got back.

Launchpad frowned, trying not to look at the television, and reached for more pizza. The pizza seemed opposed to the idea, and slid across the table away from his hand and onto the floor with a *splat*. Launchpad blinked.

"Oh, terrific. So much for leftovers," Drake groused, and jumped up to clean it off the floor. "Gos, go get napkins. LP, give me a hand."

Kneeling next to Drake, Launchpad said, "I dunno how that happened. I didn't even touch it."

"Of course you did, Launchpad," Drake said absently.

"No, I really didn't." Gosalyn came back in with an entire roll of paper towels and handed them to her father, who had Launchpad pile excess cheese onto a few layers before using the rest to mop at the floor. "Honest, DW."

Drake sighed irritably. "Then you must have jarred the table or something. Whatever."

"But I _didn't_," Launchpad asserted. "I'm not sayin' this to get outta trouble or anything! I'm sayin' it 'cause it doesn't make any sense!"

"You're right, it doesn't," Drake growled under his breath. "Gos, throw those away and put some water on these, okay?"

But Gosalyn had been diverted by Launchpad's statement. "You mean it just _moved_ across the table and ... and pushed itself off? Cool _beans_!" Drake sighed and took the paper towels to the kitchen himself while Gosalyn continued. "Sounds like a poltergeist!"

"Uh..." Launchpad suddenly felt distinctly uncomfortable. Unfortunately, the effect of anything of Beth's being special didn't apply to Beth's poltergeist.

"Don't start, Gosalyn," Drake said warningly as he came back in. Beth was just coming down the stairs.

"Start what?"

Gosalyn looked almost smug. "You've got a poltergeist. It pushed the pizza off the table while you were upstairs." To her immense satisfaction, Beth paled momentarily. Putting two and two together, Gosalyn announced, "And **that's** what you meant when you said that horror movies were the last thing you needed, right?"

"I said I wasn't in the _mood_ for them," Beth said, recovering herself, and came over to help with the pizza mess. It was mostly taken care of, and Drake refused to let her finish up. She was touched. "I just don't want to spend another night hiding under the covers thinking I hear footsteps in the hall at 2 am," she added.

It was the wrong thing to say - Gosalyn jumped on it. "You heard footsteps in your hall!?"

Sighing, Beth noticed that not only was Gosalyn looking incredibly eager, but Launchpad was looking mildly terrified. "NO. I _thought_ I did. I woke up from a nightmare, it's only natural."

"Nightmares TOO?" Gosalyn looked more and more delighted by Beth's misery. Drake shook his head and took the last of the paper towels back to the kitchen.

"Nightmares because I've seen too many scary movies lately," Beth said, almost irritably, and went to the VCR. "Now we're gonna watch _Casablanca_."

They'd barely gotten past the opening titles when Gosalyn, who had been practically bouncing the entire time, spoke up again. "Have you had anything else move around without seeing anyone do it?"

"Gosalyn! Would you knock it off with the afterlife mumbo-jumbo?!" Drake said, rolling his eyes.

Beth frowned. "No."

"Nothing? Not even leaving something in one place and when you go back to it it's in another place?"

Despite her conviction, Beth felt a chill go down her back as she thought of the sewing room and its tendency to spread its contents over the whole of the floor. "A few things fall over sometimes," she said dismissively, "but we fixed that. It was the furnace." Launchpad blinked and made eye contact with her nervously. The look said, I don't know if the furnace can do **that**. She swallowed. "Can we _please_ watch the movie?"

"Yeah," Launchpad said hoarsely.

Gosalyn sighed and managed to stay quiet for another five minutes before she said decisively, "Well, I think your house is haunted."

"Aw, Gos-"

Drake interrupted her tiredly. "You're never going to win," he said, and grinned.

"Dad's right. You wouldn't even necessarily _know_. I mean, you haven't been here that long, right? You moved in at the beginning of November or so last year. And didn't the other people here leave at around Halloween the last year they were here, Dad?"

"It's nothing, Gosalyn. Herb Muddlefoot said they _always_ took their vacation this time of year, that's all," Beth said, then wished she hadn't. That supported Gosalyn's argument, rather than refuting it.

"HA!" Gosalyn exploded, getting even more worked up. "See? What does that tell you? I think-"

Drake finally stepped in. "I think that's enough, Gosalyn. You're getting too excited over nothing. There aren't any haunted houses on our street. Beth has nothing to worry about."

"You threw in that 'on our street' part because you knew I'd mention Morgana, didn't you?"

"Absolutely."

Beth had her arms crossed and was glaring at the TV screen. Launchpad put an arm on her shoulder, and found that she was completely tense. "Gosalyn, for the last time. I've lived in this house for nearly a year, houses make noise and they have quirks, and it's Halloween and I'm bound to get a little nervous. However, _nothing_ has happened outside of the realm of physical possibility and it is ridiculous to bring ghosts into it, particularly since I do not believe that poltergeists exist, no matter what the myths may say. That's my last word on the subject."

Gosalyn was quiet for a second, then slumped down into her seat. "Well... fine then."

"Way to stand your ground, Beth!" Launchpad said, grinning.

Beth smiled quietly, but when Drake joined in, it was too much. "I have to admit - that was pretty impressive." Her heart seemed to swell, and she blushed before remembering herself and shaking out of it. 


	3. Act III

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Two, pt 2:

That night, after everyone else had gone home, Beth wished she hadn't let Gosalyn say a single word. It was all ridiculous, she knew that, but as she carted the pizza boxes over to the trash and spent some time picking at the carpet in the living room to make sure there was no cheese ground in, the idea poked at the back of her mind like a child poking at a sore spot just to see if it would hurt. _They said the pizza slid across the table by itself..._

Well, that was just silly. It wasn't Launchpad's fault, of course - accidents happened, she didn't bear him any ill will over it, but it was obvious that he had just knocked the pizza with his hand and not noticed it.

_Have you had anything else move around without seeing anyone do it?_

She shook her head and set her mind firmly. No ghosts, no poltergeists, just a few people with overactive imagin-

The thump from upstairs was very loud this time.

Beth suddenly was very aware of exactly how dry the inside of her mouth was. She tried to swallow, but couldn't and choked a little. _I should get some water,_ she thought, but she couldn't make herself move. _Yes. Water. Any moment now, I will get up and get some water._

Instead, she knelt on the carpet for more than a minute, listening intently, even though her own heavy breathing was the only sound she could make out. Finally she shook her head and said aloud, "This is stupid. Get up there and show yourself how stupid it is." And with that, she summoned every ounce of willpower she had and rose to her feet.

Her determined stride lasted all the way upstairs and down the hallway, even in spite of her brief stop to turn the hall lights on - which she knew was very logical, because otherwise she could easily trip. She reached the sewing room, and without stopping pushed the door wide open. It gave easily, having been slightly ajar as she usually left it, and she stepped inside and turned on the light.

At first she nearly screamed - there was a body on her floor! A moment later, however, through a mind slightly fogged by fear and an accelerated heartbeat, she recognized it as her new sewing dummy. Perfectly understandable that she didn't recognize it, she'd only gotten it a couple of days ago, sure, but she still felt foolish. "See?" she said out loud, as if being loudly vocal would prove that she was truly alone. "You're just chicken." She moved towards it and picked it up. Behind her, the curtains blew slightly, as if in a gentle breeze through an open window... But the windows remained closed. Shadows stirred in the corner, and Beth stepped right by them without noticing.

The curtains blew more forcefully as the nonexistant breeze picked up strength, and the overhead lights flickered. Beth looked up instantly, frowning slightly, and a moment later started humming to herself with a deliberate volume. _I am NOT superstitious,_ she told herself.

And then it hit her.

She had locked this door this morning, and not been back inside since - not even when she had brought the costume material upstairs. That was in her bedroom.

The next thing she knew, she was downstairs, picking up the phone in horribly shaking hands and fumbling at the keys, praying desperately that he hadn't left for his patrol yet, gasping and unable to make herself look back at the banister, back towards the room. The phone rang four or five times, as her tension increased with every ring, before someone picked up. Gosalyn answered _finally_, "Hello?"

Beth's throat locked. She nearly let it all come out of her in a pouring flood but instead she took a breath, and after a long pause said carefully, "It's Beth, um, is Drake still there?"

"Sure," Gosalyn said, and there was a pause and a sound of some fumbling before Drake's voice came on, sounding a little fed up in that familiar way.

"Beth, I'm just out the door. Is this important?"

"I - I need you to come over. Right away. Please. I'm sorry to interrupt you but I - I just really need you to come over, please, okay?" When he agreed, she thought she heard some concern in his voice, and it comforted her a bit.

He had to change out of costume first, and thus it took him longer to get there than she was evidently comfortable with. By the time they got to her door, she was wielding some kind of meat-tenderizing mallet as a defensive weapon when she met them. "Is everything okay?" he asked, stepping in and looking around. Launchpad followed and immediately put an arm around her as she dropped the mallet to the floor and nearly collapsed against him.

"I don't know," she said, her voice muffled as it came from against Launchpad's jacket, "I just - I don't know..."

Gosalyn came in behind them. "Is it the ghosts?"

Drake turned on her. "Gosalyn!"

"Sorry. Insensitive, huh?"

"To say the least. That, and I very specifically told you to stay at home."

His daughter blinked innocently. "You did? You musta been mumbling again, I didn't hear you..."

Drake grit his teeth and turned back to Beth, who was still clinging to a happily supportive Launchpad, but at least was showing her face again. "Now - what's the problem?"

She let out a shaky sigh. "It - upstairs. I think there's someone in the house. I left a room locked, and I just went upstairs and it was open, and there were things falling over in there. I think someone's been in here, Drake, I didn't know what else to do."

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, and told himself that she'd been right to do it. Heck, you live two houses down from a crimefighter, it doesn't make the least bit of sense **not** to call him. Besides, this was exactly the sort of thing he was going out to fight, anyway, although he'd have preferred it if it were obviously caused by Megavolt or Quackerjack or someone. "Okay. We'll search the house, okay? Starting with the basement. LP, you come with me; Beth and Gos, stay here and make sure no one leaves." Beth didn't look pleased at having to give up Launchpad's comforting skills, but she nodded. Gosalyn had the good graces _not_ to turn on the TV and resume watching the slasher flick she'd been getting into at home.

The search of the basement proved fruitless, but it was followed by a search of the entire first and second stories, and then the attic. Nothing was found - nothing was out of place. At this point, Drake's earlier decision not to blame it on Beth was wearing him a little thin. "Well. That's a good hour wasted," he muttered, coming back down from the attic as Beth looked at him with wide eyes, and Gosalyn seemed about to ask what it had been like up there. "_No_, there were no bones or anything, young lady."

"How boring," she said dismissively.

"I'm sorry, Drake," Beth said in a small voice. "But - but I locked that door. I **know** I locked it. And I haven't been in since - look, I even put the things I was working on in my room, not in there! I _locked_ that door, and someone _un_locked it!"

Drake looked doubtful. "How do you know you locked it today, and not yesterday?"

"Because I locked it **today**! This morning, just before I went to get Launchpad! I _know_ what I remember, Drake!" She stared at him, and he stared back, and finally he sighed.

"Fine. It was this door here?" He gestured to the door to the sewing room, still standing partially open. The light was off, although Beth didn't remember if she'd been the one to turn it off or not. When she nodded, he checked the doorknob. It wouldn't turn. He blinked. "It's still locked," he said quietly. Quickly, he added in a louder voice, "Not that that means anything! You probably have a loose lock, and it just didn't keep and swung open. Happens all the time." Turning to Gosalyn, he whispered, "Not **one** word."

Beth was looking at the floor, obviously embarrassed. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I was just so scared-"

"Think nothing of it," he said lightly, noticing with no real surprise that Launchpad's arm was around her shoulders again. "We can't ALL have nerves of steel... Defending civilians is what Darkwing Duck _does._" _Even,_ he thought in a much more sour tone, _when they ask him to essentially get their cat out of a tree._

She sighed and walked them down the stairs again, unconsciously avoiding the wall at the end of the hallway. "I was wondering though - what do you think might be making everything fall over in the room that way?"

Drake had no idea, but he wasn't about to let on to that. "Welllll, the... furnace, probably! Sure, if it's right over the furnace it might be shaking because of that." Gosalyn made an odd snorting sound and Drake glared at her.

Beth frowned. "Launchpad just looked at the furnace," she said thoughtfully.

"Well, like I said, I don't know _that_ much about 'em," Launchpad pointed out reluctantly. "I mighta missed somethin'."

"Yeah..." She still sounded uncertain. "Or it could be the pipes, right...? Something to do with the inside of the house?"

"Sure, sure," Drake said. Each moment that passed, he was more eager to get out and start his patrol. "I'm sure it's nothing, if you have any other problems come by my place and talk to Gosalyn - see you tomorrow, g'night."

Unfortunately, the expression on her face showed how worried she still was, and he couldn't just let that go without feeling guilty. _C'mon, LP, you do something. This is your area._ Attempting a little prodding, he said, "Wellll, if you're really worried about having the house being all empty, one of us could always stay overnight..."

Launchpad waffled for a second longer - it _had_ been a while since they'd had a good fruitful night of patrolling, Drake acknowledged - but then he took the bait. "I can stay on the couch, if ya want! DW doesn't need me on patrol _every_ night."

Perfect. Unfortunately, Beth shook her head. "No, I couldn't do that. Darkwing needs you," she said with a smile, and Drake's ego felt a little indignant at the suggestion. "It's okay, I'll be fine. I don't want to put you out."

"Aw, it's no trouble at all!" Launchpad said eagerly. Darkwing elbowed him.

"Don't push it!" he whispered. His sidekick nodded. "If you're sure," he said one more time, praying that this really was the point where he could leave. She nodded. "Great. Night!" And with that he started off back to his own house.

Gosalyn shrugged. "I think for Dad, that was a remarkably controlled effort at politeness. See ya tomorrow, Beth."

Launchpad lingered a moment longer, then said, "Um, if you're really sure, I'm gonna go with DW tonight. Okay?"

"Of course!" Beth said with a sincere nod. "Thanks so much for coming over."

"No problemo," he answered casually. Beth smiled. For some odd reason, she really liked hearing him say that. He gave her another hug before he left, and she shut the door after him - and locked it for the first time in a while.

She locked her bedroom door as well, and pulled the blanket up over her face, leaving just a slot for air to come in. Sleep came only after a rather uneasy hour and a half.

* * *

She was in the hallway again, running, and the woman was ahead of her. She could always see the woman, coming closer, even around the corners and forks in the halls...

The woman in white was on the floor, standing - no, floating, her arms at her sides. She ran to her, down the stairs, and suddenly she was right there.

She was beautiful - but sad, so sad, and her eyes were dark with misery and time. _Beth..._

Who are you?

_Leave, Beth, while you can._

No - this is my house. I'm not going anywhere. **You** have to leave.

She looked even sadder and repeated, _Leave. You must leave._

The walls wrapped around them, stairs and doors and windows all spiralling into a cocoon that surrounded them, and the woman began to wail, expressing her misery though her mouth never opened, and she sobbed and cried out without sound.

A final hollow moan echoed in Beth's head as she awoke, a scream dying in her throat, and she lay in her bed in terror before the real world solidified around her. That was the worst one yet, and always the same halls, the same woman... She lay silently, letting her heartbeat slow, and checked the clock. Just 2am. Time to get back to sleep, to forget all of this, then wake up early and finish the costume. Just a dream. Nothing to worry about.

Then the noises started again, from down the hall, and they were louder than they'd been the night before. Footsteps - _Squirrels, probably, don't get worked up. You just have squirrels_ - and, unmistakably, the sounds of things moving. Not falling - _moving_. No more thumps, but footsteps and movement and Gosalyn was right -

_No, no, no, stop it!_ She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the blanket back over her head. _There's no one there. I **know** there's no one there!_

The sounds quieted. Nothing for about ten minutes, and she relaxed enough that her eyelids were starting to fall again...

And then something ran down her hallway.

_Squirrels it's squirrels just stupid brainless squirrels, oh god, PLEASE let it just be squirrels..._

The footsteps went past her door at top speed, then stopped. Nothing ran back, nothing went down the stairs, they just stopped at the end of the hallway. If there was really someone, he must still be there. _How could I have thought I imagined it last night?_ she asked herself, almost in tears. _I **heard** that. I know I did. Was it so loud then?_

More noises began in the sewing room - dull thuds, as though more things were falling over, but they sounded so far away she couldn't imagine what they were. These quieted, and more footsteps - lighter ones this time - pattered through the hallway and down the stairs.

Straining to hear, she picked up signs of them in her living room, running back and forth, disappearing for a moment - into the kitchen? She had a vision of the runner dashing about the room, through the kitchen door, that would sound just about right - then back near the stairs, around some more - then quiet. Nothing.

She waited. The silence extended, and she let herself breathe again.

_Squirrels. I'll call an exterminator. It was squirrels._

She told herself that until she managed to fall asleep again, more than an hour later. 


	4. Act IV

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Three:

Beth finished her costume by noon but with an unfortunate and uncharacteristically high number of needle pricks to her finger. She was thankful that she had left the costume supplies in her room, because frankly the idea of setting foot in the sewing room right now was giving her butterflies in her stomach. Telling herself it was silly - and she knew it was - didn't help. She certainly didn't believe in ghosts, of course it wasn't **that**, it was just that... that... it was unpleasant in there and she didn't want to go in. Pure and simple. Yeah.

She took the leftover material and thread back upstairs, lay them carefully on her dresser top (and was quite pleased that they seemed to stay put there), and spread her costume out over the bed. She sighed, still not certain she'd actually be able to bring herself to wear it, especially now that she looked at the finished product. _This has the potential to humiliate me into never showing my face out of doors again,_ she thought nervously. Yet, somehow, she was almost looking forward to it.

On her way back downstairs, she slowed down and looked at the wall at the end of the hallway.

It looked back.

She shuddered involuntarily and shook her head. How on earth had she gotten **that** little nightmare into her head?! She put her hand on the wall almost angrily, and didn't let herself flinch when she found that it was body temperature and vibrating a little. That made it clear, then - it was **obviously** the furnace. She'd have to call in a repairman after all... Well, Launchpad had tried his best.

She stayed on the side of the steps away from the wall on her way down, regardless of her rationale.

* * *

The Muddlefoots' house was something to be proud of... any casual observer would have taken it for haunted, in a cheerful kids-cartoony kind of way. Cobwebs fluttered at the windows, the rain gutter had been carefully detached on the side of the house and was hanging low, the spider's legs were uncomfortably visible from any direction you viewed the house from... and she swore she saw something in one of the upstairs windows. She'd have to ask about that when she got to the party tonight.

She passed it by, continuing on her way to the Mallards' house on a whim visit - she had nothing to do there, but she had nothing to do at home either, and it was better to be bored with other people than bored alone.

After receiving no answer when she knocked, she shook her head and nerved herself, as she always had to, to enter the house without waiting to be let in. "Hello?" she called, stepping inside.

No answer.

Feeling a bit uneasy, not the least for the fact that she was technically trespassing, she cleared her throat and tried to repeat her yell louder. Unfortunately, it came out several degrees more quietly. "Hello...?" she squeaked, then shook her head. Giving it all she had, she called "ANYONE HERE?"

At that, Gosalyn came barrelling down the stairs. "Sorry! I was just giving Lauchpad a hand with his costume!"

"Oh! What is it?"

Gosalyn smiled wickedly. "He said not to tell you." Raising an eyebrow, she added, "_You_, specifically."

Beth pouted. "I didn't realize he was into retaliation."

"Of course, I could be convinced to let it slip... for a reasonable price..." Gosalyn said in a sing-song voice, batting her eyelashes innocently. Beth looked at her like she was nuts, and the young girl sighed. "Well, it was worth a shot."

"So, Launchpad's upstairs; is your father in?"

Gosalyn shook her head. "Naaahhh, he's got some kinda delivery from SHUSH and he's setting it up. He says he's decided he won't go to the party, since Morgana said she couldn't go."

Beth blinked, and was surprised to find that she wasn't as let down as she thought she'd be. "Oh? Oh, make him come. You know he'll have a good time if he goes."

"Of course!" Gosalyn said, snorting indignantly. "As if I _wouldn't_ make him go!" She walked over to the couch, flopped onto it, and turned on the TV before turning back to Beth and asking, "So what's up? You got nothing to do?"

Shrugging, Beth slid down onto the couch as well, turning occasionally to look upstairs when she heard bumping coming from the second story. "Um... No, I don't... Is Launchpad okay up there?"

"Just a big costume," Gosalyn said dismissively. "Um... You know libraries and stuff, right?"

Beth beamed. "Do I! I was offered a job there because I kept putting all the books away for the volunteers more quickly than they could."

After a long but silent stare at her older friend, Gosalyn continued, "...Um... that's... good... So you wouldn't mind taking me there so that I can get some books for a project I have due on Monday?"

"It's due _Monday_, and you left it until _now_?"

"Well - it was actually due yesterday, but _don't_ tell Dad, okay??" Gosalyn blinked, her eyes wide and sincere, and Beth could only put her hand over her eyes and shake her head.

* * *

"...being silly, Gosalyn, and I'm tired of this subject."

Gosalyn walked through the door Beth was holding open for her and flung her arms to the sides in an impassioned sort of way. "But **how** is it being silly? I just think you should look up the history of your house and see if anything bad ever happened there! How is that silly? You're researching, right?"

"What on earth will it prove? If I find something, how does that prove that there are ghosts? If I don't find anything, will you give up this ridiculous assertion? Probably not. So I really won't be finding _anything_ out, will I? And we're inside, so we have to be quiet." She walked ahead, towards the children's non-fiction section.

Following her, Gosalyn frowned. "You're in a bad mood all of a sudden."

"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night," Beth said shortly, then sighed. "But you're right. I'm sorry. It's just not my favourite subject right now, Gos, you understand? It might be cool to you, but even though I don't believe it, it still sticks with me at night and you're not the one who has to sleep there alone all night long."

"Well..." Gosalyn reluctantly nodded her head. "Okay, granted, when you put it _that_ way..."

Beth smiled slightly and started walking again. "So, I figured we'd start with non-fiction and see what books we could find, then look a few things up in the encyclopedia, and if we have time, we can look in the _periodicals_!"

Gosalyn sighed. "Oh, joy." Beth was cooler than she seemed at first glance, sure, and Gosalyn related with her pretty well, but... man, she got kicks out of the weirdest things sometimes.

As they passed an elderly librarian, Beth smiled and gave a big wave. "Hi, Mrs. Quackenbos!"

"Hello, Beth!" the woman replied with a smile of her own. Gosalyn rolled her eyes in disgust.

They lost track of one another when Beth found the card catalog. She took down notes of the best books for reference while Gosalyn made her way through the shelves looking for anything on the topic she was supposed to write a paper on. Evidently the books Beth was finding had deceptively different titles, because she couldn't find anything. Well, if Beth was going to do all the work for her, she was going to entertain herself some other way.

When Beth found her, about twenty minutes later, she was carrying a stack of about ten books. "You're so in luck, Gos! I went through them all and they all have glossaries and bibliographies and everything! I see you're already looking through periodicals - skipped right to the good stuff, huh?" Her smile faded as she got closer. "What're you looking at?"

Gosalyn jumped. "Um, nothing," she said, trying to cover the old yellowing newspaper with her hands. Although, privately, she wondered if she should bother to try to hide it; Beth was going to want to see it now anyway, and besides, it was exactly what she had been looking for earlier. The young girl found herself with a sudden new respect for libraries.

Beth leaned in closer. "C'mon, let me see. You've got me all curious now." She lifted Gosalyn's hand from the paper, and then froze.

With a sigh, Gosalyn took her other arm away so that Beth could read the rest of the headline. "I got bored," she said, not entirely unhappy at showing her find to Beth. Her friend's eyes widened as she took in the boldened letters.

"'The House on Avian Way: 20-Year Anniversary of Strange Disappearance'," she said aloud, eyeing Gosalyn. "What kind of weird stuff are you reading?" she asked, sounding amused, and she pulled up her chair. "This looks like some kind of tabloid article! 'It was early on the morning of November the 1st, 1951, when Stella D'Oro , 24, breathed her last.' Oh, please... My baby sister could write a better newspaper article. Where did you get this?"

"I was just looking through some old copies of the _St Canard Sun_ and found it," Gosalyn said innocuously, not bothering to mention that she'd asked a stone-faced librarian to do a search of articles to see if there were any relating to 541 Avian Way. She hadn't exactly expected to hit jackpot in such a way.

Beth didn't seem to be paying her much attention anymore. She was reading the article, mouthing along with it and occasionally reading some of it aloud. "...'Police declined to say that it was a murder situation' - Yeah, that's because they need a _body_ or signs of _struggle_... oh, wait. '-despite the evidence that D'Oro's house was ransacked by her attacker. Every room in the house appeared to have been turned inside out...'" She trailed off again, evidently skimming more rapidly now. "'...seemingly ordinary house on Avian Way in suburban St. Canard is still filled with yearly apparitions... Reports of voices, nightmares, footsteps...' Did they say where this house is?"

"There's a picture," Gosalyn offered, turning the page and pointing. "Here." Beth didn't answer, just put her hand over her mouth. The house had been reconstructed some in the intervening 20 years, but it was still unmistakably her own. "They say a little more about the hauntings-"

"There are **no** hauntings," Beth said firmly. A bit too firmly. She turned back to the paper and read sharply, "After standing empty for more than five years, the house once again became occupied, but has quickly gained a reputation from being the house with the highest turn-over of owners in the state. Few previous owners could be contacted, but those who were reported strange disturbances which grew more and more violent as Halloween approached. None of them admitted to staying past October 30th, and studies show that the house was put back on the market around that time more often than any other time of year. However, no realtors admit to ever having seen so much as a candlelight flickering.' This is garbage," Beth said angrily, and seemed to be about to tear the page out of the old journal. "This is a Halloween edition from 1971. It must just be a gag. We shouldn't take it -" she broke off suddenly, and gasped quickly.

"What?" Gosalyn leaned forward as Beth's eyes went wide and focused on a picture near the bottom of the page.

Tapping the faded black-and-white image, she said in a whisper, "Her." The picture was of a blonde duck, pretty enough in an old-fashioned sort of way, her hair pulled back from her face into a high ponytail and a smile gracing her youthful face. The caption beneath read, "Stella D'Oro, who disappeared from her home 20 years ago on November 1st".

Beth shook her head. "I know her, I know her. I've seen her. How have I..." She trailed off again, and her hand went to her mouth in a gesture of shock.

Gosalyn looked briefly at the other picture, of a rather shifty-looking tomcat dressed to the nines and leering at the camera. According to the caption it was Richard Kaspar, Stella's suspected murderer. The article had said that he'd been hanging around her house for a few weeks before Stella's disappearance, but after that, he had vanished as well. She looked back up at Beth, who was staring at her with wide, wet eyes.

"My nightmares. She's the woman in my - she can't be..."

With a sudden forcefulness, she slammed the journal shut, picked up the books she'd collected for Gosalyn, and walked out. Gosalyn blinked, then followed her, nearly having to jog to keep up with Beth's lengthier strides.

"You saw her in your _dreams_? Did she tell you to 'GET OUT' or anything like that?" she asked eagerly.

Beth wouldn't answer, and the books were checked out summarily and silently. Beth remained quiet during most of the bus ride home, until Gosalyn said in a definite tone, "Well, I guess that clarifies it."

"Clarifies what?" Beth asked tiredly.

With a smug grin, Gosalyn said, "You've got ghosts. But the article said they'd go away after Halloween, so you don't have to worry for too much longer."

"I don't," Beth said, her voice as firm as it had been the night before. Gosalyn stared at her, open-mouthed, and Beth elaborated: "There are no ghosts. If I thought I recognized that woman, I must have seen her picture somewhere before and worked it into my dream for some reason. It's entirely possible... I might have even read that article. In fact, I think I _did_ read it, years ago; I forgot about it until now, or never made the connection, but now that we've all been talking so much about ghosts it's just naturally turning up in my nightmares. Makes perfect sense." She struggled with the pile of books she was holding, and finally gave a few to Gosalyn. "Here, you can carry some, they're for your report," she said good-naturedly.

Gosalyn realized then for the first time just how much denial was a firmly-established habit with Beth. 


	5. Act V

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Four:

Gosalyn and Darkwing were arguing when Launchpad checked the clock. His neck itched, but he tried not to think about it - it was going to itch for the rest of the night. Gosalyn swore up and down that the Super Glue would wear off after a few hours, and he hoped that was true, because he really didn't like these bolts on his neck _that_ much. They were, she'd insisted, _essential_ to the 'Frankenduck' look, and she was the one with the experience in that area so he didn't bother to argue. She'd assured him that they looked extremely cool, and he had to admit, it was a sort of neat look.

By now it was after seven, and Beth still hadn't come over. Maybe he should go and see if she was okay. "Hey, guys?"

Gosalyn, whose zombie costume looked far too convincing for Launchpad's nerves, didn't seem to hear him. "You're gonna go because you always go, Dad! They'd notice if you just didn't show up!"

If Darkwing cared about this fact, he didn't show any signs. "I'm _not_ going to go, because I have to go on patrol." In fact, he was already wearing his costume, and had been for most of the day.

Launchpad sighed and waited for a break in the argument. When one came, he tried again. "Guys, I'm just gonna-"

"One second, LP," Darkwing said absently without looking in his direction, and then addressed Gosalyn again. "I've never even _tried_ to pretend I like the Muddlefoots, Gosalyn, pointing that out isn't going to get me to change my mind!"

"Maybe if you'd just -" Gosalyn began, exasperation in her voice, and Launchpad shrugged and stepped outside.

He clomped along the sidewalk - that was really the only word for it in boots like these - then clomped up to Beth's door and tried the knob. It was locked... Funny. She wouldn't've gone without him, would she? He knocked on the door. "Beth? Hey, Beth, are ya home?"

There was no answer, so after a few moments more he was turning to go back and wait for Gos and DW, when with a click and a creak, the door edged its way open. Stepping inside, he said, "Hey, you are - here..." but the words died as he looked around and saw no one in the room. The lights were on, but the room was entirely empty. He turned the doorknob, still in his hand. It was unlocked now. Puzzled, Launchpad just stood in place and said nothing.

"Hello?" Beth called from upstairs, and he jumped - he'd practically forgotten where he was for a second. "Is someone down there?" she yelled, sounding slightly worried.

"It's me, Launchpad," he called back, and shut the door behind him. "Did you come down to unlock the door?"

"It wasn't locked!"

"Um..." He paused, then said, "You sure? I coulda sworn it was..."

"It must've been stuck!" she called back.

Okay - sure, that made sense. He shrugged. "Guess so... Ya gonna come down? I'll lose my voice yellin' up to you like this!"

She didn't answer for a few moments. Finally she called, "No, I'm not!"

"What? What about the party?"

In a voice that now sounded even more worried than before, she called, "I'm not going to the party!"

"Why not? Can I come up?"

"No DON'T!" she yelled. He sighed.

This was getting ridiculous. "Um, Beth, is there somethin' wrong? Do ya need help?"

"Nothing's wrong," she answered, with that little note of 'I'm absolutely fine and not bothered by this at all, really' in her voice. "I just don't have a costume, is all. Not one I should wear out."

"But ya spent all that time on it! You don't make bad stuff!"

"Um," she said, her voice wobbly, "it's not bad, it's just not good for me, so... You guys have fun and I'll see you tomorrow!"

Launchpad blinked, exasperated, and wondered if this was how Gosalyn felt with DW. It was like pulling teeth. By now he was feeling just about ready to go up there and pull her out of wherever she was hiding herself. "Can I at least _see_ the costume and tell ya what I think about it? Ya might like a second opinion-"

"NO!" she said, sounding about to panic.

"Aw, Beth, c'mon. It's ME," he said plaintively, and after a pause, there was a sound from above of a door opening quietly.

A moment later, her hand appeared around the corner of the upstairs wall, followed by her head and an intriguingly bare shoulder as she leaned tentatively into his line of vision. "Promise not to laugh?" she asked quietly, her hair framing her face in a style he'd never seen before.

"Of course," he said sincerely, relieved to finally be making some headway. She took a deep breath and came down the stairs, wearing a dress that was right out of a movie. All white, full skirt, no sleeves, low cut... in fact the entire top part seemed to be made only of two sashes coming up out of the skirt that tied in the back. She had these little high heels on, making her a good inch or so taller, and her hair done up somehow so that it seemed only half as long, curling and waving around her face and brushing slightly down her neck. And, of course, she was in contacts instead of her glasses, so the blue of her eyes was twice as noticable.

He blinked. It was all he could do.

"See," she said with a sigh, reaching the bottom of the stairs and standing just before him, "told ya. Nice dress, but on me..." She looked up at him and noticed he was staring. "Launchpad? Um, hey, anybody home?" She waved her hand in front of his face, and he blinked again.

"Sorry. Um, you look..."

"I'll save you the search for a polite euphemism for 'stupid'," she said, smiling weakly. "I don't know why I thought this was a good idea - I mean the idea itself I know where it came from, because my middle name is Marilynn, even though it's got two 'n's and so it's not actually _after_ Marilyn Monroe, but I thought, 'Hey, _I_ can make that dress from "The Seven-Year Itch"', but somehow I neglected to think about what that dress would look like on **me**, and as it turns out I just look -"

"Beth," he said, his voice breaking a little. He felt like a teenager again. "You're gorgeous." She made a little noise, a quiet squeak that sounded like it had a question mark on the end of it, so he nodded. "You are. Your hair - your eyes... Wow, Beth..." He moved closer, leaned down a bit toward her, and actually if she hadn't moved he would have kissed her before he even thought about it. Fortunately - or maybe not - she took a nervous half-step back, looking from side to side, her eyes wide.

"A-are you just saying that because...?" she stammered, trailing off before voicing what 'because' was. He could take a guess, though.

"No," he said emphatically, "no, honest, I'm just statin' the obvious." She patted her hair nervously, but looked a little bit more at ease. Still, something about her expression, her eyes all wide this way, made her look like she was about to cry. He added, "Ya make Marilyn Monroe look like nothin'."

She blushed even more heavily, if that was possible. "Well, let's not go nuts here," she said, ending in a giggle, and stared at the floor. Her posture was looser now, and he could tell she'd relaxed. "Um... nice boots," she offered, and looked up at him, a bit more closely now.

"I feel underdressed," he said with a chuckle, putting a hand behind his neck and accidentally whacking the green fake forehead Gosalyn had picked up for him. It twisted to the side.

Beth reached up and gently pulled it back, straightening it just right. "No, no, it's a perfect costume! Much better for Halloween than this. Gosalyn's idea, right?"

"How'd ya guess?" he asked flatly.

She laughed, and when Beth _really_ laughed without being self-conscious it was the most infectious thing in the world, so he did too. "I love the Frankenduck movies. Wow, you even got the bolts and everything. It's perfect."

Launchpad nodded. "Well, Gos has experience with this look," he said, grinning. "She was a real perfectionist about it seein' as how she got to do it for real." Beth was looking at him with an expression of shock, bordering on disbelief. "Uh, long story. I'll tell ya later. Ya wanna get goin'?"

She smiled shyly. "Love to. Do I look alright?"

"You look fantastic," he said softly, then as afterthought added, "which I already told ya about five times now," and winked.

Blushing to the point where she nearly glowed, Beth nonetheless smirked and said, "I just wanted to hear it again."

She took his arm as they left, and he walked her next door, beaming as proudly as though he could claim her as his own. "Y'know," he said softly as they reached the door, "you look gorgeous every day."

As a result, Beth was speechless and quite pink when Herb Muddlefoot, swathed in what must have been ten miles of bandages, tugged them jovially inside.

* * *

The party was a little bit more crowded than the parties at the Muddlefoot's house usually were - this time rather than being limited to the Muddlefoots, the Mallards, and the single Webfoot next door, about three other families had shown up. Herb was delighted at the chance to branch out, and was playing host to the full extent, trailing mummy bandages throughout the house. Honker on the other hand had retreated even more than he usually did at the larger company, and was spending most of his time against the wall.

Fortunately, Gosalyn was as loyal as ever, and spent her time right there with him. Of course, she had a few comments on his costume, but Honker had expected that.

"Charles Drakewin," he repeated, as his best friend shook her head. "You know, the father of the theory of evolution!"

"I trust you on that, Honk," Gosalyn said with a sigh, eyeing the period clothes Honker was draped in. Her eyes lingered skeptically at the dark-haired wig he had on. "All I'm saying is that if you're gonna be something for Halloween, at least be someone everyone _knows_."

"Everyone knows Drakewin! Actually I thought maybe he was a little _too_ obvious," Honker answered earnestly.

"Honk, _no one_ on the _planet_ is gonna have any idea who you are!" Gosalyn said, waving her hand so hard that little chunks of fake flesh went flying. Honker frowned nervously.

A gasp from a little ways away drew both their attention, as a brown-haired woman scampered over to them. When she got a bit closer, Honker realized it was Beth; without her glasses and with the different hairstyle, he'd had no idea. Before he could even say hi, she exclaimed cheerfully, "Charles Drakewin!!"

Honker beamed, and Beth laughed happily. Gosalyn sighed and muttered, "Okay, _one_ person on the planet, but I shouldn't be surprised."

"Wow! What a great costume! It's so _accurate_!" Beth exclaimed, looking him up and down. "Don't you look **handsome**," she said, winking, and Honker blushed and grinned. Rather stupidly, at least for Honker, Gosalyn thought. Beth ruffled the hair of the wig affectionately, and Gosalyn stared at them both, particularly at Honker who looked downright dopey.

"HI, Beth," she said pointedly.

Smiling, Beth turned to face her, and her smile faltered just a little. "Um, Gosalyn! That's a very... realistic costume you have, also."

The eleven-year-old grinned with satisfaction. "Took me a week to make this paste for the fake deadrot," she said happily. "I was _hoping_ Dad would let me get contact lenses so it'd look like my eyes were all white, but he said no. Next year I can get 'em though - I'm thinking, blood red."

Beth paled. "I'm amazed at your dedication, Gos," she said, and if nothing else, it was sincere.

* * *

Drake was not particularly enjoying himself. Sulking would be a good word, probably, except that he would never do anything as undignified as _sulking_, so he preferred to refer to it as 'very obviously not having a good time'. Whatever you called it, he was doing it in the corner, close to the little table of refreshments that Launchpad had naturally gravitated towards. While his sidekick grabbed handfuls of cheese puffs, Drake looked around the party a bit. Binkie was wandering around in a pink, sparkling dress, looking like something out of "The Wizard of Oz"; Herb was a mummy, and had already come by about ten times to slap him heartily on the back and ask how he liked the 'shindig'; Beth had come in with Launchpad and at first he hadn't even recognized her in that dress and with her hair done up that way. Marilyn Monroe, apparently, but what surprised him was that she played the part pretty well. She was talking to the kids now, apparently unaware that she was getting stares from various sides of the room. Probably best that she not know, at that.

His own costume was... well, his costume. Gosalyn had shoved him out the door in his Darkwing costume, and he'd finally conceded, as long as she'd let him take the mask off and fiddle around with the collar enough to make it slightly different. Herb and Binkie weren't actually that likely to put two and two together. Of course, he hadn't realized that anyone but the Muddlefoots would even be here, which was another reason he was now hiding in the corner and generally keeping his hat pulled down over his eyes.

Herb sidled up to him again, slapping him on the back and laughing. "Hey, Drakester, you gettin' enough air over here? C'mon out and talk it up!"

Drake winced. "No, Herb, I... I'm just getting over a bad cold, ya see. Don't want to infect anyone. Not even you," he said pointedly, and stared at Herb's hand on his shoulder until it was removed.

"Well, suit yerself," Herb said reluctantly, "but ya gotta make the most of it while you're here, okay? Sorry your lady friend couldn't make it..."

"Morgana?" He sighed to himself. "Yeah, well... She had other obligations." _Too bad she doesn't also have a daughter who is adept enough at blackmail to make her 'forget' those obligations,_ he thought, scowling in Gosalyn's direction.

"Nice costume by the way, spud!" Herb gave him another thump on the back before remembering about the supposed cold. "Pretty good for a novice, but ya know I met Darkwing a good ten times, an' if ya can stand a little constructive criticism, ya got him all wrong. I can getcha pictures if ya want, though -"

"It's fine," Drake growled through clenched teeth, his arms tightly crossed. "I look exactly the way I want to look."

Herb chuckled. "Well, whatever ya say, buddy. Lissen I gotta go talk up some o' the other neighbours, but I'll be back soon, so don't go nowhere!"

_I gotta get out of here,_ Drake thought desperately, trying his best to sink back into the corner until he became invisible.

* * *

Launchpad stared at Beth for a minute or two while her back was turned, before he walked up to her with a handful of cookies Binkie had made. She looked slightly cornered, talking to a woman who lived across the street and was dressed in a 'Frankenduck's Bride' costume; Beth had never been good at conversation with new people, no matter how friendly they were or how harmless they looked. But, cornered or not, she still practically glowed; even in a room full of people, there would only be one like her, looking pretty and shy and cute, in that dress or in her usual shirt and jeans.

He smiled and joined her, handing her a cookie. "I think they got raisins in 'em," he said quietly, then turned to the Bride. "Hey!"

"Hey yourself," she said coyly, "looks like you and I are supposed to hook up, huh?"

The woman laughed, and Beth said quickly, "Actually, if you're following the movie you're supposed to hiss at him and run away." The Bride blinked, evidently taken slightly aback, and Beth fidgeted. "According to the movie."

"Sure," she said. "Well, I don't want to interrupt you two. Nice talking to you, Beth."

As the woman walked across the room, Beth turned and frowned up at Launchpad, evidently only slightly upset. "Well... I'm a stickler for details," she said defensively, and casually hooked her arm through Launchpad's, pulling him in the direction opposite that in which the woman had gone. Launchpad grinned.

At that moment, a loud knocking began on the door. Herb answered it, shambling over in his bandages, and the door swung wide open before he got to it, revealing a shapely figure in a black dress so form-fitting it looked as if the wearer had been sewn into it. The wearer in question stepped inside, smoothed her hair gracefully, and in a throaty voice said, "I haven't missed the party, have I?"

Beth's heart sank slightly. Morgana. Morgana, the tall mysterious drop-dead knockout witch whom everyone liked, wearing an even more provocative dress than usual and currently being greeted by a very jubilant Herb. "I thought she wasn't coming," Beth whispered to Launchpad, who, like everyone else, was staring. As usual.

Launchpad shrugged. "That's what she told DW. Some entrance, huh?"

Sighing heavily, Beth said, "Yeah."

Drake's interest was grabbed; he ran across the room to escort her into the party, looking like his life had been saved. "Morgana! I thought you weren't going to make it!"

"Oh, darling," she purred, stooping to kiss him on his forehead, "it turned out that there was less to do at tonight's celebration than I thought there would be, so I left early. Binkie, it's _so_ nice to see you again!"

The hostess twittered, her huge pink ballgown in sharp contrast to Morgana's long black dress. "We're just thrilled to death to see you again, Morgana! There are refreshments over there, and ooh, I see you brought your own spider decorations!" she said, pointing at Archie, who was perched on Morgana's right shoulder.

Smiling warmly, the witch said, "It seemed like the season." She led Drake around the room, stopping at Beth and Launchpad. "Beth! It's so wonderful to see you again - it's been too long."

Beth plastered a big smile on her face and hoped it looked real. "Gosh, you too," she said, forcing a laugh and stepping back towards Launchpad a teensy bit. "Loooooong time. Real long. I didn't even realize it 'til now."

"Well, now I'm even more glad I came," said Morgana, and turned to Launchpad. "Launchpad, the same goes for you! Next time Dark and I go out we should make it a family thing, with you two, and Gosalyn. Speaking of Gosalyn... I love your costume," she said, and she and Launchpad shared a laugh before she floated off along the floor.

"Does _everyone_ know that story but me?" Beth asked irritably.

Launchpad flushed beneath the green makeup he had on. "I'll tell ya later, promise."

"Fine." Beth sighed, picking at the half of the cookie she hadn't eaten yet, and stared after Morgana. Just like everyone else in the room. "She's so beautiful."

Launchpad shrugged. "Yeah. She's okay, if you like that sorta thing. Ya kinda get used to it after a while."

"Really?" Beth found that a bit hard to believe, but Launchpad just turned to her and smiled.

"Sure. That dress is nice, but really she looks just like she usually does, 'cept in black. You, though... You look - heh. Wow."

Beth blushed again. She should feel guilty - she always felt guilty when he talked like this, and a little bit of that was because she kind of enjoyed it - but tonight she didn't mind so much. "Wow?"

"WOW." Launchpad wiggled his eyebrows suggestively, and she giggled and smacked his arm a little.

"Well, um..." She looked around for a moment, then hitched her voice up a register and spoke in a breathy near-whisper, "It's not easy being a bombshell you know..."

Launchpad blinked. "Whoa! I didn't know you did impressions, too!"

"Just of Marilyn," she answered, nervously crumbling the cookie apart and grinning, "and um... I don't normally do that one in public anyway."

"Well - you're good."

She nearly said that she'd watched a lot of movies with Marilyn in them; she nearly said that it was just a lucky shot; she nearly said it wasn't _that_ good. Instead she just said, "Thanks." Somehow watching Morgana circle the room with Drake staring at her adoringly wasn't half so bad now.

* * *

It was well after midnight by the time the party wound to a close. Drake roused Gosalyn from her slumber on the couch, and Honker was led upstairs by his mother while Herb bid everyone goodnight; Morgana was invited over "any ol' time", and she appeared delighted, although Drake seemed quite keen on rushing her out the door before any more socializing went on.

Outside, Beth shivered in the late October night air as Morgana bid everyone goodnight. "It's good to get to see you all at the holidays," she said cheerily, while Gosalyn leaned against her father, looking as though she were asleep again already.

"By the way, Morg, thanks for not just teleporting inside while everyone was there," Drake said, holding Morgana's hand in his own.

She smiled teasingly. "I thought about it, actually. I could have passed it off as a Halloween gimmick."

"I know you get along well with the 'living impaired', Morg, but I'd rather **not** have a heart attack any time soon."

"You take everything too seriously, Dark," she said fondly, and kissed him.

Beth tried not to notice, and didn't argue when Launchpad said, "Hey, I'll walk ya home."

"I think you should be a vampire next year," she said as they walked, rather slowly, along the extremely short trip.

Launchpad visibly shuddered. "No way. Had too much of that already."

After a pause, Beth asked, "Is this one of those things you'll tell me about later?"

"Yep." He grinned. "Actually I was thinkin' I oughta do like you, be a movie person. Be James Dean or somethin'."

"Be Elvis!" she said delightedly. They reached her door, and she leaned her back against it before going inside, crossing her arms over her chest and rubbing her shoulders to keep them warm.

"Hey, I could be Bogart," he suggested, "I can sorta do an impression of him."

"Oh?" Beth's eyes gleamed wickedly. "I did Marilyn for you, now you do Bogie."

Launchpad cleared his throat and said in a slurred sort of growl, "The problems of two people don't amount to a hilla beans." Beth laughed, and he leaned closer, caging her in. "If you don't get on that plane, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon - and for the rest of your life," he finished, eye to eye with her.

Softly, she said, "Frankenduck doesn't say that."

"Fire bad," he mumbled, and moved closer. This time she let him.

"Launchpad," Drake's voice came from next door, "I'd like to get Gosalyn home and lock up the house sometime this _century_?"

He stepped away quickly, and Beth turned immediately and fumbled with her doorknob, let herself in, and gave a quick "Night!" which he barely had time to return before she'd shut the door and locked it behind her.

Well... shoot.

He shook his head and walked home. 


	6. Act VI

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Five:

Beth shut and locked the door quickly, then flung herself across it as though she were holding it closed against what had almost just happened. "No, no no no no no," she breathed. "We are not going to go there."

She was shaking, so she took a few deep breaths to calm herself and slumped against the door. "Okay. Calm. Everything's good. Don't think about it - it was a mistake. I've just been... sending out the wrong signals lately, and I'll stop, that's all. Everything is still good."

It was just hard to know where to draw the line, that was all. She had to admit that it was flattering, to have someone whose attention was always on her, someone she _knew_ was interested in what she said or did... and she was taking advantage of that. It wasn't his fault, it was definately hers; she was pushing the boundaries because she could, and it was giving all kinds of mixed messages, and so it was no surprise at all that he had tried to -

Well. Sure, she got carried away. Having a man's attention was kind of addictive, she admitted guiltily, but it wasn't as if she was actually going to kiss him.

Except, she thought with even more guilt, she maybe almost had.

No more, though. It was the costume and the party, and she wouldn't get swept up like that again. All she had to do was reset those boundaries firmly at "Friends Only", and Launchpad would stick to them (he always had before) and everything would be fine. Fine. Yes. Nothing to worry about or freak out over in the least.

She took a deep breath, let it out, and began to feel better.

As she turned off the outside light, her hand brushed the wall, and she shuddered: it had the same feeling as the wall upstairs. She tried the wall opposite the front door and met with the same result.

Something inside her revolted. _Get out, NOW. Just leave, run, don't think about where you're going, just RUN, just **GO**..._

But she refused. What it all came down to was that Beth Webfoot was not a superstitious 'fraidy-cat, and she wasn't about to let some funky heating scare her out. That was it. Sure. After a few moments she was able to convince her legs to take her upstairs to her room, where she remembered that it was nearly 1 am, and after she'd put on a nightshirt she collapsed onto the bed.

She awoke suddenly from an uneasy dream she couldn't remember at all and fumbled for the clock. Just before 2:00 - only an hour later. She groaned, and wondered what had awakened her... Must have been _something_... There was no sound though, for which she was intensely thankful.

Her mouth seemed awfully dry. Well, as long as she was up, she could go get something to drink. She forced herself out of bed, grabbed her robe on the way, and was already downstairs and halfway across the living room when the air in the house suddenly went cold. Not just as if a breeze had gone through or a subtle shift in temperature, but a genuinely large drop, as though she'd just stepped into a freezer. Her breath condensed into steam in front of her.

Beth stopped, tightening the robe around her body, and waited for something she knew was coming even though she didn't want it to come. Within a moment she heard them - voices, from upstairs, from down the hall. From the sewing room. They spoke in a mumble, and she couldn't quite decipher them, but there was certainly more than one.

The voices became louder, yet oddly she still couldn't understand them - they could have been in a foreign language for all she knew, yet she could hear them fine, muffled but intense - and her heartbeat quickened when a shuffling of footsteps fled down her second-story hall, thumping, ending at the wall by the stairs. Someone yelled.

_Oh GOD Beth get out, get out, don't stay, this isn't right-_ The voice in her head was panicking, but Beth couldn't move. Her legs were like lead as a woman's voice yelled from upstairs, and softer footsteps traced the heavier ones from a moment ago, and it was still so cold, it was freezing, and the footsteps carried down the stairs full volume as if someone were _right there in front of her_. Breathing, heavy and panicked, brushed past her bringing a heavy chill, and still she couldn't move.

Noises came from the kitchen - thumps, scrapes, sobs - and suddenly it was back in the living room, passing Beth again. The house's walls seemed to be contracting around her, breathing as heavily as the voice she couldn't help but hear; and now words came as if from far off, almost echoing but definitely there, near the door:

"Oh, this can't be happening, this can't be HAPPENING!!"

And the door, as she watched, _expanded_. She saw it; it stretched and bulged and the disembodied voice sobbed, then said pleadingly, "No... No, no, no, no!"

_I'm hearing someone's death,_ Beth realized sickly, _she's going to die. This is how she died and I can't stop it, and I'm going to hear her die right in front of me._ If she'd been able to move, she'd have fallen to the ground in a faint.

The pants and sobs were in the centre of the room now, gasping louder, and Beth tried so hard not to hear, but suddenly the voice screamed, shrieked even: "_DEMON BEGONE!_ I cast you OUT!"

Beth's blood ran cold as one last bloodcurdling scream filled her house, and then there was only silence.

For a few moments the only sound was of Beth's own breathing, so harsh and quick that at first she thought it was still the presence from a moment ago, and she couldn't move. She couldn't see, or hear, or think, because it was still so cold, and then suddenly a door swung shut upstairs, and she bolted.

* * *

Drake woke up to the sound of a distant pounding. Pulling himself out of a dream about building an extension onto the Tower, he sat up - no, it was real, and someone was yelling outside.

He grabbed his robe and ran down the stairs, the yells getting louder with every step he took. It sounded like Beth, and when he yanked the door open, it was indeed a very frightened Beth Webfoot who threw her arms around him, sobbing.

"What is it? Beth, what happened? Beth - stop crying and tell me. Calm down -" He did his best to comfort her, but she was sobbing incoherently, and this really wasn't his area of talent. He momentarily considered prying her away from him and shaking her a little to see if it would help to get some sense out of her.

Fortunately, Launchpad and Gosalyn were hurrying down the stairs, and Drake gratefully stepped back as Launchpad pulled her away from the befuddled crimefighter and held her comfortingly.

"Beth?" Drake tried again, a bit more gently now that he didn't have her crushing his ribs. "What the heck is going on? Did someone attack you?"

She began to calm down as Launchpad rubbed her back, and in between sobs, she managed, "N-no, it's... it's the, the h-huh-house! Th-there - something -" She clung to Launchpad again, shaking, and he gave Drake a slightly alarmed look, which admittedly might have just been because Beth didn't seem to realize that people needed to breathe. Drake, his patience wearing thin, rolled his eyes; this was like pulling teeth.

He managed a small comforting pat on her shoulder. "Breathe. Relax." _Enough already,_ he just barely didn't say aloud.

Sniffling, Beth nodded, and her grip on Launchpad relaxed a little. She was still shaking, though, as she looked at Gosalyn tearfully. "You w-were right," she said, her voice full of fear. "S-something is... that w-woman, I- I heard her. Th-there's something th-there." She shut her eyes, still shaking, and Launchpad held her tighter in what was almost certainly an expression of nervousness on his part, as well.

"I _knew_ it," said Gosalyn excitedly, but Drake glared at her and she went silent again.

Sighing, Drake said, "Look, you can stay here tonight, Beth. LP, give me a hand setting up the guest room. Gosalyn - you go back to bed."

"You know, Dad, maybe if Beth tells someone what happened it would help her feel better, and I just happen to be available..." A stern glance from her father prompted her to add, "Or maybe I'll just go to bed, seeing as how it's late!"

Launchpad spoke up for the first time since Beth had arrived. "Hey, DW, don't worry about the guest room. Just lemme get a blanket an' I'll take the couch, Beth can sleep in my room."

Beth pulled away from him, sniffling. "No, that's silly, I'll sleep on the couch-"

"No way. You're all upset, you should at least get an actual bed."

"But-"

He smiled at her. "Aw c'mon. I sleep on the couch durin' the day anyway."

Impatiently, Drake said, "So am I fixing up the guest room, or can I go back to sleep?"

Beth jumped, almost guiltily, and said, "Go back to sleep. I'm sorry, Drake. Forget I'm even here."

Whatever was in her house would have to wait until tomorrow, and she didn't mind at all. 


	7. Act VII

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Six:

Beth burrowed down into the blankets she'd slept in, not so much for warmth as for comfort, and fought the inevitable process of waking up. It was no use, and after an indeterminate time of seeming to float in nothingness, her eyes drifted open almost of their own accord.

The light in the room was a warm lemony yellow, streaming in through a half-closed shade, and for several moments she had no idea where she was. She looked around slowly, feeling decidedly subdued despite her general uncertainty of her whereabouts.

It came back to her in a flood, mostly of embarrassment: humiliating herself at 2 am in front of everyone in the Mallard household, Launchpad insisting on taking the couch and letting her have his bedroom. She sighed, adding guilt to her humiliation. He was probably still down there, while she was languishing in his bed. It was a _nice_ bed, though - very well-worn. Still - it was hardly fair of her to hog it any longer.

She retrieved her glasses from the little table next to the bed, then checked the clock they'd been resting on. 6:45 - she'd had less than 5 hours of sleep. Surprisingly, though, she felt wide awake; maybe she'd just managed to sleep off the tension that had been building up at home over - _whatever_. She changed her train of thought before she had to think about whatever it was that had happened the night before.

Well, if she let Launchpad have his room back now, he could sleep in for the rest of the morning, and maybe then she wouldn't feel so guilty. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed, taking in the room as she did. It was small, a bit cluttered, and he obviously didn't dust much since she could see little motes dancing in the beams of light streaming in from the window. But somehow it was all so _cozy_. Warm and comfortable and ... she didn't know a good word for it, really, but just _safe_. She straightened out the bedspread, then took her robe and went downstairs.

Launchpad was sound asleep, and now that she was looking at him she felt guilty waking him. He actually looked pretty comfortable. She gave it a shot anyway. "Launchpad...?" she whispered, and got no response. She'd always hated waking people up, and it didn't help any that he looked so cute there.

She shook her head. _Get over it,_ she thought, rolling her eyes at herself, and tapped on his shoulder gently. "Launchpad, wake up," she murmured. His response to this was to roll over, away from her hand, and stick his thumb in his mouth. Beth stifled a giggle.

Once more, she tapped him. "Launchpad. Launchpad, wake up."

He stirred. "Huh? Somethin' wrong?"

"No, um..." She blushed, feeling silly. "You can - um - go to bed now." From the expression on his face, he clearly didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "Upstairs," she elaborated. "I'm up - thank you for letting me use your room. You can go to sleep in there now."

"Oh," he said vaguely, evidently struggling to keep his eyes open. There was a long pause. "No problemo," he finally mumbled and, yawning, stumbled up the stairs towards his room.

Gosalyn passed him on her way down, and she had to hug the wall to keep out of his way. "Wow. Talk about Frankenduck," she commented, and came downstairs the rest of the way.

"What are you doing up at 7 am, Gos?" asked Beth, waffling between having a seat and going for the door.

"Cartoon day," Gosalyn said with a shrug. "Not as much stuff on as Saturdays, but they show some of the old stuff today between now and eleven or so."

Beth decided to go ahead and stall going home. "Old stuff?"

"Yeah, you know, like old Henna-Barbeara stuff. Hey, I bet they'll show a lot of the scary stuff for Halloween." She caught herself. "Um... sorry - "

Feeling sillier and sillier about it in the light of day, Beth chuckled. "Ah, forget it. I was never allowed to watch that stuff as a kid, y'know... Mom said something about it rotting my brain."

"Wanna watch it now? I got a _lot_ of cereal if you want any..."

She smiled. "Sure, why not?" Might be nice to laugh about 'spooky' stuff now, instead of having to think about the reality of it. Beth continued to lock that away and not even address it long enough to debunk it, and she went to the kitchen to get the cereal Gosalyn instructed while the eleven-year-old tuned in the right channel.

Drake pulled himself out of bed at around ten that morning, and gave Beth an odd look as he passed her on his way to the coffee pot. She blushed, sinking down into her seat on the couch. By this point she really *should* have gone home, and the fact that she was watching cartoons from 1978 with Gosalyn didn't help her any. Nor did the fact that she was on her third bowl of Frosty-O's, come to think of it.

Still, she really didn't feel like going home yet. Maybe Drake wouldn't make a big deal of it.

"So Beth, your ghosts won't even let you back in to get a change of clothes, huh?" Drake said as he reemerged from the kitchen. Beth sank lower into the cushions, her face bright red.

Gosalyn turned halfway to look in his direction. "Geez, Dad, twist the knife why don't you. Beth had a very traumatic experience last night, after all," she finished, taking a tone that might have been intended as comforting, but came out as oddly patronizing.

Intentionally or not, this comment only made Beth feel worse, and she stood up suddenly. "Drake's right, and I feel silly enough as it is, so why don't I just go home and we can all forget about it."

"You're going _back_?" Gosalyn sounded amazed. "After getting chased out that way last night?"

Beth gave a noisy sigh. "I didn't get _chased_ out. I overreacted to something-"

"Nightmares can do crazy things to your mind at 2 am," Drake added, taking a seat in one of the armchairs.

"Right. There is nothing at my house that the light of day won't expose as having an earthly basis." Beth nodded, reaching the door. Gosalyn jumped up and ran at her, slamming it shut just as Beth got it open.

"You're not going back to _that_ old line, are you? Are we really thinking this through??" she asked seriously, staring into her older friend's face.

Drake groaned. "Don't pay her any attention, Beth, it only makes her worse. And Gosalyn, stop trying to scare Beth outta going home!"

Beth stared back at Gosalyn, trying to look just as intense. "There's no such thing as ghosts. That's a _fact_."

Gosalyn raised an eyebrow. "Fine. But something _factually_ sent you running over here screaming in the middle of the night."

The memory of what she'd heard the night before came back clearly, and she found she could no longer deny that it was something _other_ than the house settling. She shivered. "Okay..." she said reluctantly, and avoided Drake's eye contact. "I admit that it wasn't my imagination. But it doesn't prove that there were ghosts."

Frustrated, Gosalyn threw her hands up into the air and stomped back to the television. "Okay, FINE. Things move by themselves, you hear voices, you see misty figures - "

"I haven't _seen_ anything!" Beth cried before realizing that Gosalyn was just throwing out random "haunting" symptoms with no particular regard for whether Beth had experienced them or not.

"But they're not ghosts, oh nooooo. What else is it gonna be?" Gosalyn flopped onto the couch with her arms crossed, looking cranky.

Beth looked back at the door, and could see her reflection in the doorknob as she reached for it. She watched the distorted image of her hand block out her much smaller face, and shivered. "Prowlers," she said quietly, and turned back to them. Gosalyn was very carefully ignoring her, and Drake looked as though he'd prefer being able to do the same, but she continued. "Or - or supervillains. Or just some jerky teenagers who snuck in and planted a microphone."

Drake looked up finally. "I get the strangest sense that you're angling for something here."

"I heard _something_ last night, Drake. Not just the house or the wind - something definite. Is it possible someone might actually be trying to kick me out of my house for some odd reason?"

He looked doubtful, but finally shrugged and slumped over. "Fine. What else is a detective for?"

* * *

A half hour later, dressed in clean clothes, Beth sat uncomfortably on her own couch while Drake searched the house at length. She had the feeling he was going out of his way to be nice to her, although with Drake she really never could tell; there were subtleties to the perpetual crankiness he seemed to have while he was with her, and they took forever to figure out. Getting a feel for Drake was never an exact science.

She sighed - at least he was there, even if it was grudgingly. She simply felt better with someone else in the house. No matter where she went, she felt like she was being watched. It was terrible to have no privacy in her own home. Of course it was all psychological; it was the same way she'd react if she'd been robbed, to feel that no place was safe. The silly ghost idea was just something that had been latched on to by her, and whoever was harassing her, because of the season.

Something Herb had said returned to her then, about the previous owners of the house - the Wrightsons. They'd gone away every year at this time. Gosalyn had acted like that was proof that the place was haunted. The reasoning there was pretty specious, of course, but... what _had_ been their reason for leaving every year at this time? Suddenly she had to know. She jumped up and grabbed the phone book, then paged through it until she reached the W's.

After scanning the page, she found it: B. Wrightson. It was the only one listed, so she circled the name and picked up the phone, dialing quickly with oddly trembling hands.

"Yes?" a low voice answered after the second ring.

"M-Mr. Wrightson?" she asked hesitantly, stalling for time as she realized she had no idea what she was going to say.

Sounding both impatient and puzzled, the voice repeated, "Yes?"

"Bernie Wrightson? Who used to live at 541 Avian Way?"

Now he sounded even more impatient. "Yes, that's me. Who is this?"

Her face felt hot. "I - um, Mr. Wrightson, you don't know me, but my name's Beth Webfoot..."

She was surprised by how shocked his voice sounded when he asked, "How did you get this number?"

"It's... it's in the phone book," she answered, confused.

"Phone book...?" he mumbled, probably to himself, and sounded puzzled.

Beth couldn't figure out why the phone book was such a foreign concept to him, so she changed the subject. "Um, I'm sorry to bother you, but... Well, this is going to sound really silly, but I live in your old house, and I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about it."

"Ah," he said, sudden understanding in his voice, and she found that she was unnerved. "You live in the House on Avian Way, do you?"

"I... Yes, 541 Avian Way..."

He chuckled. "I suppose you're wondering about the noises. Let's see - it's the 29th, isn't it? Have you seen anything yet?"

She blinked. "Um, Mr. Wrightson... Are you saying that this house has... supernatural entities?"

This time he laughed outright. "Yep, it's haunted. I can't say the wife and I ever made it through an entire haunting, though - we usually took off around this time, and came back about the 2nd or 3rd of November just to make sure it'd all died down. So to speak." Apparently he determined from the silence on her end that she was shocked. "Hey, it goes away by the beginning of next month, honey, don't worry about it. Just do like we did, take off for a few days, and you won't have any trouble until next year."

"That's insane," Beth said forcefully, though suddenly the house felt very big and empty. "How - how could-"

"Look, I'm not saying you have to believe me or anything. I'm just giving you some advice. But hey - check the number you dialed, will you? My number's unlisted."

She barely registered the *click* as he hung up - she was too busy staring at the phone book, where her own name and phone number had been circled by her own hand.

"Well, surprise surprise, there's nothing here," Drake announced as he came down the stairs, and stopped when Beth jumped violently. "You might wanna lay off the caffeine, it's just me."

"Sorry," she said, breathing deeply, and wondered why _she_ was apologizing for being scared by _him_. "I just... I was just thinking. So... um... you're done?"

"Yep," he said importantly, "and guess what I found? Nothing. Nada. _Zippo_. This house... is clean."

"Oh..."

"_But_," he said, moving past her to get to the kitchen, "your window might've been open in the sewing room. That room is _freezing_." She followed him into the kitchen and found him at the refrigerator, where he pulled out a can of Coo-Coo Cola. After opening it and taking a swallow, he continued, "Someone might've gotten in through there last night and just entertained themselves by terrorizing you. I'll check for fingerprints after lunch, and then we can nail that window shut. You should be fine tonight." He took another gulp of cola, and looked at her to find her eyes wide and worried. He sighed. It was the "I'm sorry, Drake, but..." face. If Beth ever found out what a sucker he actually was for that stupid expression...

"I'm sorry, Drake, but..." she sighed. "I feel so violated. And - and, whatever was here last night, it wasn't just in the sewing room - I heard noises - down _here_. Even in the kitchen here. Drake..." She looked up, and he could see her eyes were shiny and she was halfway to tears. It irritated the living daylights out of him, particularly because he knew he'd do whatever she asked now. "I'd just... I'd feel better if you were here. Then if something happens, you'll see it too, and I bet then you can figure out how it's being done, right? I know you can."

He already knew he'd say yes. Stupid Beth, with her stupid vulnerability... The only thing he was able to do was to at least make it _look_ like he didn't know he'd say yes, so that at least she wouldn't start using that face just to get him to do her dishes or something. "You are _personally_ going to help me track down _all_ the perpetrators of any crimes that have happened while I've been babysitting you the past few nights, Beth," he said sternly. The look of relief on her face was actually quite gratifying. 


	8. Act VIII

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Seven:

"This is _so_ cool," said Gosalyn, impaling two more marshmallows onto her already-gooey stick. She held them out over the fireplace to toast. "And we don't even have to _tell_ ghost stories, because this whole house-"

"_Enough_, Gosalyn," Drake sighed, exasperation showing in his voice. Beside him, Launchpad was keeping his mouth crammed full of marshmallows - typical. Drake didn't want to be here. He'd missed an uncomfortable number of nightly patrols this week already, and with Beth acting the way she was, it didn't seem like he would ever get to go out again. He might just as well marry her, if she was going to be this limiting on his free time.

And then, of course, Gosalyn had found out about it and insisted on coming. He should have anticipated that. Having Launchpad there wasn't so bad; for one thing, he and Beth distracted one another from getting spooked. But having Gosalyn there was another story entirely. Despite his certainty that nothing would happen, he still naturally worried when Gosalyn was in the line of any potential danger - what father wouldn't?

Then there was the fact that Gosalyn was single-handedly distracting Beth and Launchpad enough from each other to _keep_ them from distracting one another. The toasting marshmallows had been her idea; so had the bright idea to gather sleeping bags before the fireplace and "camp out" in the living room. He wouldn't put it past her to cause her own scene, if she didn't get enough of one during the course of the evening...

Drake was thrown off the course of his thoughts when a loud thump came from upstairs. Beth's eyes darted nervously to the staircase immediately, whereas Launchpad had the opposite reaction and almost physically shrank away from the stairs. The foursome kept silent as two more, quieter, thumps sounded; then all was still.

Gosalyn broke the silence first. "Can we go up and see what it was this time?"

"I think we're runnin' low on marshmallows," Launchpad said quickly. "Maybe I oughta make a run to the store and pick up another bag?"

"Relax, LP, we're not going to check it out this time. Probably just _another_ stack of magazines falling," Drake said, watching Beth from the corner of his eye. She was still looking upstairs, and although he couldn't see her face in full, she seemed to be frowning. He sighed. "Or would you rather I take a look, Beth. _Again._"

Apologetically, she answered, "Well... I mean - that was probably more than one thing hitting the ground, the way it was timed, and I'd just feel better -"

"Fine, say no more," Drake said, with resignation. He stood, and shot his sidekick a look. "No, no, Launchpad... don't get up, I'm perfectly happy to go by myself." Apparently missing the sarcasm, Launchpad sighed with relief.

Gosalyn bounced to her feet. "If it's just magazines, I can go too, right?"

"Why not?" He shrugged apathetically and headed for the stairs.

Beth got up too, and gathered up the empty bowls they'd kept potato chips in. "Sorry, Drake - I'd just sleep easier if..."

"Yeah, yeah, heard it, got the t-shirt." He trailed off into mumbling as he climbed the stairs, Gosalyn at his heels. Beth disappeared into her kitchen, and Launchpad kept his eyes on the fire, so the shadow that skittered across the wall behind Drake and his daughter went unnoticed by everyone.

* * *

Launchpad watched the fire flickering and wondered why he was there. Okay, granted, the house would've seemed really empty with DW and Gos gone for the night, but he could've handled that. Instead, here he was spending the night in what could be a haunted house.

_Aw, quit thinkin' like that!_ he told himself firmly - or at least, as firmly as he could manage. This was _Beth's_ house, a house he'd been in practically a million times, and nobody else was worried. Well, not worried about ghosts, anyway.

He heard Beth come back out from the kitchen; her steps circled the living room, then stopped just behind him. "Y'know, the fire was a good idea," he said, picking up the poker and stoking it idly. "Nice an' warm. And I gotta say, the marshmallows were a pretty good idea, too." He chuckled and trailed off. Beth made no answer; she hadn't even moved since before he'd spoken. The silence dragged on, and Launchpad felt the feathers on the back of his neck ruffle uncomfortably. He shivered. "Beth...?" he asked, turning slowly.

Nothing. No one behind him, or anywhere else... Just an empty room.

He swallowed. His mouth was dry.

The kitchen door swung open, and Beth came out with two mugs of hot chocolate. "I thought we could use up the last of the marshmallows with cocoa," she said lightly, and handed him one. "Drake and Gos aren't back down yet? Gee, I hope their cocoa doesn't get cold... You okay?"

Launchpad forced himself to nod and take a sip of the cocoa. "Fine," he croaked after swallowing.

"Okay..." Beth didn't look convinced, but she put the other mug down on her coffee table and started back for the kitchen. "I guess I'll get the other two -"

"Wait," Launchpad said, so quickly that he surprised them both. "Uh - don't go just yet, okay? I mean... uh... ya might as well wait for DW and Gos to come back down before ya get 'em drinks, right?"

She gave him a look for a moment - he might have been imagining the questioning expression in it - then shrugged, picked up her mug again, then made herself comfortable next to him. "Guess so." They drank in quiet for a moment or two, then she broke the silence first. "Launchpad?"

He expected to be asked if he was sure he was okay, or if something had happened, and he wasn't sure what he'd answer if she did. Instead, she leaned her head against his arm, sighed, and said, "I'm glad you're here."

Oh, yeah... **this** was why he was there. Ghosts lost prominence in his mind for the time being, and after a moment's hesitation, he put his arm around her shoulders and smiled as she snuggled against him.

They both jumped when Drake and Gosalyn came back downstairs. "Well, nothing up there, not even anything that fell over. We took a little time to see if there were any holes in the walls or anything - there's got to be _some_ place that the cold is getting in to that room."

"You didn't find anything, did you," Beth said, pulling away from Launchpad in a self-conscious movement. Drake shook his head. "I wonder what it is-" She broke off in a gasp as the lights suddenly went out. The room was lit only by the fire as it jumped about in the fireplace.

Launchpad blinked a few times, and Gosalyn cheered. "Cool! Mood lighting!"

"Probably blew a fuse," Drake said, looking around the room, although it was unlikely he could actually see much of anything in the darkness. "Is the fusebox in the basement?"

"Well, yes, but..." Beth's silhouette in front of the fire was sitting rather stiffly now; she was agitated. Stuttering lightly, she said, "You - you might as well leave it, you know, u-until tomorrow morning - I mean - we have the fire and all..."

Drake agreed to this surprisingly quickly. Launchpad was relieved - even though he was sure they were right, and it probably was just a blown fuse, he knew enough about slasher movies to know that it was when the group started splitting up that bad stuff started happening. He was equally glad when Gos went with Beth into the kitchen to get the other two mugs of hot cocoa, and he noticed that when they came back Beth looked even more nervous. If she'd seen or heard anything in the kitchen, however, she didn't tell anyone, and he was glad of that, as well.

They agreed that it was probably best to just go to sleep, since without electricity there was little else that they could do. When conversation died down, Launchpad could hear constant sounds of what seemed to be muffled movement coming from upstairs. He shot a look at Beth, who was settled to the right of him, and found that she looked as though she was trying just as hard as he was to ignore the noises. He shut his eyes, told himself that she probably had a mouse problem, and made himself go to sleep.

* * *

He didn't know how much time had passed when he woke up again. In fact, for a few panicky moments he didn't know where he was. He shot up in the sleeping bag and looked around blindly. Calm came gradually, after a few seconds' thought. Right - Beth's house. His head was warm because he was sleeping right by the fire, which was still going comfortably. There were the others: Beth, DW, and Gos, all in a row, all asleep.

Dim memories of a dream he couldn't quite recall kept him on edge. Something about a blonde woman, crying, somewhere in the house... Only it hadn't been this house, had it? It couldn't have... He remembered running around strangely-shaped hallways that he'd never seen before.

But it had _felt_ like Beth's house. Launchpad shivered, and lay down in the sleeping bag again with the intent of forgetting all about this until morning. Unfortunately, he very quickly realized what had woken him up. He should've known drinking all that Coo-Coo Cola was a bad idea! Just because it had been de-caff didn't make it okay. Maybe he could ignore it...

He squirmed for about five minutes, then sighed. Well, if it had to be done, it had to be done... He listened carefully for a few moments, satisfying himself that the house was indeed quiet. Nothin' to worry about. Sure... He swallowed and sat up, shooting another look at the others as he did. He couldn't see Gos's face from where he was, but Beth's face was pinched, and DW was gritting his teeth and frowning. Looked like they were having nightmares, too. He got up and made his way through the darkness to the bathroom upstairs.

* * *

Darkwing knew danger when he was in it. He was surrounded by it, and he didn't like it, and he was Darkwing Duck so he would stop it.

He turned, and the woman was still there. It was maddening; every corner he turned, every direction he ran in, there she was. White robe, blonde hair, a face he couldn't see, lined with sorrow and dust, heavy with years even though he could tell her features were those of a younger woman.

Another turn, and she was there, holding her arm out to him, her face a blank slate with eyes. That _look_ in her eyes...

_Leave, Drake. Get out._

Ha! No one told Darkwing Duck what to do. Even if they did know his secret identity, still, that wouldn't change things.

_Leave, before it's too late. Time is passing._

Darkwing pulled out his gas gun, _suck gas, evil - er, being,_ and pulled the trigger, but it did nothing. His hand, he could see through his hand, and the gas gun dropped through his fingers as though they were mist, and he stared as he disappeared, watching his body fade into nothing -

And for a ghastly moment he felt it, the horrid _lacking_ of not being - seeing but never seen, never felt, feeling and thinking but formless can't even move there's nothing _to_ move -

Drake sat up violently, stifling a gasp.

Quiet. It was quiet. And - he put his hand to his chest, then head - he was solid, thank heaven. He lay back down to catch his breath and noticed in the murky light that he could _see_ his breath. He looked back over his shoulder - the fire was going out. "Oh, _great_," he muttered, and tried to see if he could find the poker in the fading light.

"Drake?"

The whisper sounded so like the woman in his nightmare that he yelped. "Beth!" he said in a loud whisper, trying to cover. "Thanks for the heart attack!"

She propped herself up on an elbow. "It got cold like this last night, too," she said quietly.

"What time is it?"

"Two," she answered. "The clock just struck, right before you sat up."

"I thought the power was -" He stopped mid-sentence, because Beth held up a finger and looked up towards the second-floor balcony. "What?"

Her whisper was much softer than it had been. It took him a moment to figure out what she said. "There's a light up there."

He saw it too, as the fire dimmed entirely. A dull glow from somewhere near the end of the hallway, its origin obscured by the wall that picked up after the balcony ended - dull, but still enough to cast a shadow. "The - the power must have come back on," he said, whispering without realizing it.

"Listen," she breathed, and her breath hung in the dark room like a wraith before drifting away. Noises again - and... Were those voices? They both strained to hear as the first few murmurs from upstairs grew louder, and they were able to distinguish two voices - a man's and a woman's.

Drake glanced at Gosalyn. In the dark, he couldn't see her face, but she was lying perfectly still... Hopefully that meant she was still asleep, and with any luck she would stay that way. Leaning towards Beth, he asked, "Can you make out what they're saying?"

She shook her head. "Just sounds. It - I think they're... she's chanting." She gasped loudly a split-second later when the man's voice gave a yell, making Drake jump. "Oh god!" she whimpered. He reached for her hand, and she took it, squeezing it gratefully.

Thudding footsteps along the hallway preceded Drake's quick view of a dark _something_, running upstairs. He blinked, and it was gone. "What-"

"What was that?!" Beth whispered hoarsely. She groped for her glasses with her other hand, and fumbled to put them on without letting go of Drake. He was staring at the balcony still, and with some effort Beth forced herself to look up at the landing.

There was a shape there. And it was moving.

Drake winced as Beth grasped his hand more tightly than ever - it felt like she was breaking his fingers - but he found he couldn't blame her. It was a woman, and he knew her. It was the woman from his dream. She flew down the stairs, gliding, her long hair and white robes streaming behind her. They seemed to possess a life of their own, lighter than air, ethereally drifting and curling about her form no matter which way she moved. She was running, he could tell, but it was like looking at a woman moving under a strobe light - pieces of her motion seemed missing. Her speed was normal, but her movements were slowed down, like she -

_Like she's not really here,_ he thought, and shivered. Beth squeezed his hand again in response.

As she glided down the stairs, her entire presence suggesting panic despite her smooth movements, she screamed again. It built from nothing, as though far away, and ended in an almost violent burst. "RICHIE!!"

_Richie?_ Drake had time to think.

She screamed again. "RICHIE IF YOU'RE HERE YOU BETTER DO SOMETHIIIIING!"

"Oh god, oh no," Beth sobbed, barely audible. Drake tried to swallow and couldn't, as the ghost flowed from the staircase to the front door. Oddly, he could hear her breathing. _This has to be a trick,_ he thought. _She's a ghost, they don't breathe, they're dead._ But when she passed him, for a split second he saw the detail of the embroidery on her robes, the colour of her eyes; and he heard the ragged way she drew in breath, more clearly than he could have any living being. She ran to the kitchen, preternaturally graceful, and held her arms out to push the door open before disappearing through the wood.

It was strangely quiet. He turned to Beth, who stared back at him, her glasses slightly misted by her breath. "Is... is it over?"

She shook her head, her eyes wide and terrified. "No."

A shriek erupted from the kitchen, with the same kind of odd, reverse-faded sound to it as before. "I CAST YOU OUT!" She reappeared through the same door, and floated across the living room. She was sobbing, he noticed now. "Oh, this can't be happening... This can't be HAPPENING!" No wonder she'd seemed so sad in his dream, if these were the final moments of her life.

He blinked, and she was back at the front door again, reaching for it. And the door retreated, shrinking away from her. Drake's heart threatened to stop at that sight - ghosts were one thing, ghosts could be fake, ghosts were like a movie - but the sight of Beth's front door _stretching_, actually twisting itself away, made it all real. She suddenly flew at the door, in her slow-regular motion, and for a moment he thought she'd just pass through that as well - but she didn't. She grasped the doorknob, actually _turned_ it, then let go.

"No," the ghost sobbed in a miserable whisper, "No, no, no, no!" Drained now, she floated to the centre of the room - just in front of them.

Her unreal, re-enacted breathing caught as she locked eyes with the two people witnessing her death.

She looked as startled as they did. Beth moaned and grabbed Drake's arm, pinching it. He winced again as the ghost screamed, "DEMON BEGONE! I cast you OUT!"

"Demon?" he said softly. If she could hear, she showed no sign. Instead she moaned in much the same tone Beth had used, gaining strength until it became a wail. Then, her hair and robes still writhing about her, she faded from view. Her final sob hung in the air after she had gone.

Beth and Drake sat in silence, still gripping each other, until a rushing of air behind them made them jump. The fire had re-ignited itself.

"She saw us," Beth said hoarsely.

Drake nodded and let out a shaky breath. "If that's what happened to you last night, Beth, then I take back every bad thing I said about you since then."

"It... it wasn't that bad. It's getting stronger."

Gosalyn sat up suddenly, and they both screamed. "That was so COOL!" she proclaimed, ignoring them both. "A real live ghost just two houses down from me! I bet you could charge admission -"

"Gosalyn." Drake caught her bill between his thumb and forefinger. "Not. Now."

Beth gasped again, and Drake jumped a third time. He was turning to her to either calm her down or shake her until she stopped _doing_ that, when she said, "Drake, Launchpad's gone. Did he say where he was going? Did you see him? Where _is_ he??"

"He's gone?" He let go of Gosalyn's bill, and they both stared dumbly at Launchpad's empty sleeping bag.

Then came the scream.

A man's scream this time, and from upstairs. Beth yelled, "NO!!" and leapt to her feet, nearly tripping before she entangled her legs from her sleeping bag, and bolted up the staircase. "LAUNCHPAD!" Drake and Gosalyn followed her, but she was already at the top step by the time they reached the bottom. Still yelling his name, she ran straight into him as he came scrambling out of the bathroom towards the stairs. Drake caught up with Beth just in time to be flattened by them both as they fell over.

"What happened? Are you okay? Did they try to eat your skin??" Gosalyn asked excitedly when she reached them.

All Beth's attention was on Launchpad, however, and he barely seemed to have heard her. After taking a moment to shake off his disorientation, he seemed to remember where he was, and instantly began trying to run for it again. This resulted in quite a commotion, since Beth was trying to pull herself and Launchpad to their feet, and Drake was pinned beneath them both. After a number of elbows to the ribs and an accidental smack to his bill, he was able to pull himself away from them. Launchpad still looked panicked.

"It's okay, it's okay!" Beth was saying, holding him by his shoulders and trying to project an air of calm. She had a feeling she wasn't very good at it, but he seemed to desperately need it. "You're okay! There's nothing there, you're fine, it's over and she's gone... Launchpad, it's okay!"

Finally gaining some semblance of coherence, Launchpad shook his head. "No, no, in there! The bathroom - the mirror!"

Beth had heard somewhere that the best way to get someone to slow down and think about what they were saying was to repeat back to them what they had just said. She wasn't so sure of that, but it was the only thing she could think of. "The mirror?"

"The mirror - I saw..."

She and Drake exchanged looks. Everyone had gone quiet, and Beth said gently, "You saw what?"

"A face! An' I don't mean _my_ face, I mean, there was a face behind me - a guy's face..." He squeezed his eyes shut and shuddered, and Beth put her arms around his shoulders and held him.

She was murmuring to him again that it was fine, nothing was there now, and Drake wasn't completely convinced that Launchpad wasn't perhaps playing it up just a bit for the attention. Regardless, Drake asked, "You didn't see the woman? Or hear her?"

"Just a face," Launchpad said, his face pressed against Beth's shoulder as closely as he could manage.

Drake snorted. "It was probably just the light."

"It was **not**!" Gosalyn and Beth said in unison.

Gosalyn continued, "You _know_ it wasn't, Dad! You saw the same thing we did!" Beth nodded fiercely, and Launchpad shuddered again.

All four of them jumped when the door to the sewing room slammed shut.

After a moment, Drake said angrily, "Okay, that's _it_. This has gone on long enough." He stalked to the door and reached for the doorknob.

"Dad...!" Gosalyn gasped, and at the same time Beth said quietly, "Please don't, Drake."

He hesitated. "Whatever's in there, it's not going to hide anymore. I'm calling it out, **now**." They just stared back at him. He cleared his throat and began to turn the knob.

Something made him stop, however, a second later. A humming sound had begun from the other side of the door. He listened carefully, and realized it was some kind of chanting - a deep, masculine voice reciting something in a language he didn't recognize. More light spilled out faintly from underneath the door.

"On second thought," he said quietly, "maybe we should all get a good night's sleep and see what this looks like in the morning."

No one, not even Gosalyn, argued.


	9. Act IX

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Eight:

Gosalyn cackled maniacally as she pushed the knife blade into her victim's head. There was some minor resistance, but soon the inner wall of the hapless sphere gave way to the knife's superior edge. "MWAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!" she laughed, as loudly as she could, and sawed an opening in the top of the cranium. Pausing before removing it, she turned to Launchpad, who was sitting silently on the living room couch.

"You _sure_ you don't wanna help me carve the pumpkin, Launchpad?" she asked, trying one last time to get a response out of him. "I'll even let you carve part of the face..."

Looking troubled, Launchpad just shook his head. His hand gripped the arm of the couch tightly. Well, at least he wasn't muttering to himself anymore. That whole "I do believe in spooks" business under his breath was a little creepy.

Gosalyn shook her head and returned her attention to the pumpkin. "Lobotomy time," she told it, and set about removing the lid and then scooping out the innards. She was having a great time today - staying home from school and everything, 'cause of last night - but unfortunately, she was the only one in the house who was. Here it was, the day before Halloween, and nobody had the presence of mind to even _think_ about the holiday. Launchpad in particular seemed to be doing his best **not** to think about it, and Gosalyn thought that was just sad.

After trying to scoop out pumpkin innards with her hands alone, Gosalyn realized - as she did every year - that she needed a spoon. _Well, can't do everything barehanded,_ she reasoned as she headed for the kitchen.

Beth was where she'd been for most of the morning - seated at the kitchen table, listlessly staring into a mug of coffee. Since she rather adamantly did not drink coffee, she'd just been staring at it for a number of hours now.

"How're things, Beth?" Gosalyn greeted her as she passed on her way to the silverware drawer. She got a sigh in response. "That good, huh?"

Beth sighed again. "My house is haunted. I live in a haunted house."

"Don't rub it in," Gosalyn said jovially. She was still a bit surprised that she was the only one who thought this whole thing was _cool_. Beth had been going on about it all day. "Wanna come cheer Launchpad up?"

Another sigh. "Maybe later. I need to think about things."

"Whatever," Gosalyn said, and returned to her project.

* * *

"Great. Thanks a million; we all owe you one," Drake said, and hung up the phone. He went downstairs, passed Gosalyn as she disemboweled this year's jack-o-lantern (over newspapers, thankfully), noted that Launchpad still looked semi-catatonic, and made it into the kitchen. Beth looked as unhappy as ever. "Don't let me interrupt the self-pity party," he said as he seated himself across the table from her.

She turned an uncharacteristic glare on him. "Go ahead. Laugh. I live in a haunted house."

"And this affects you personally because...?"

She shook her head. "You wouldn't understand. You _don't_ understand. My house is haunted, yours isn't, that's all there is to it."

Drake blinked. "Welllll, I... can't fault your logic..." She glared at him again. "Look, it's taken care of. I've called in an expert with this kind of thing."

Beth looked hopeful for about half a second, and then her forehead creased. "Morgana?"

"Yep!" Drake's cheerfulness was about as uncharacteristic as Beth's foul mood, but he tended to get this way over the chance at seeing Morgana. "She'll be here as soon as she can, so -"

Both of them jumped as a yell erupted from the living room. "Launchpad??" Beth gasped and jumped to her feet. Drake followed a bit more slowly, and wasn't surprised when he saw Morgana McCawber in his living room, looking at Launchpad apologetically.

"I guess I should have knocked," she said in that high, uncertain voice she used when she felt sheepish about something. Launchpad looked like he was recovering from swallowing his tongue, but he did his best to convey that he wasn't holding a grudge.

"Morg! Thanks for coming!" Drake went to her and took her hands. "Between the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow here," he indicated Launchpad and Beth, "it's a relief to talk to someone level-headed about this whole thing..."

"Hey!" cried Gosalyn indignantly. "Are you saying I'm _not_ level-headed?"

"Yes, Little Miss 'Let's Charge Admission', that's exactly what I'm saying!" he shot back.

Gosalyn grumbled, then shrugged. "Fair enough."

Morgana took a seat on the couch, and turned to Beth, ignoring the sullen look on the young woman's face. "Now, Beth - Dark tells me you're having a little infestation problem."

"Just a tad," Beth answered, a note of sarcasm - about as much as she ever used - creeping into her voice.

"Do you have any idea what might be causing it?" Morgana asked. Beth looked as though she might answer with a more biting reply, then sighed and shook her head. "Okay, so this hasn't happened at any earlier time in the year. That's a start. Well, to fill in the missing holes we'd do best to go straight to the hell-hound's mouth, as they say!"

"I thought it was the _horse's_ - oh, forget it," Drake interjected.

Beth peered curiously at Morgana. "What do you mean, go straight to the - er - source?"

"I'd say a seance is in order." Morgana smiled as Gosalyn proclaimed this "awesome". Beth, on the other hand, wasn't so sure.

"Aren't those dangerous?"

"Oh, only if you don't know what you're doing," Morgana said airily. "And you needn't worry - I minored in contacting the dead at the Eldritch Academy. Shall we?"

* * *

Launchpad looked reluctant.

Beth really wasn't surprised. He may actually have had the worst experience of any of them, looking in the mirror and without warning seeing a ghost behind him while he was all alone. She'd assured him that he didn't have to join them in the seance, but he'd insisted, and she admitted to herself that she did feel a bit braver herself with him around. Maybe it was just by comparison, but whatever the case, she found it a lot easier to step into her darkened home than she would have thought.

Morgana, on the other hand, gasped as she floated inside. "The psychic resonance here is astounding! How could you have _doubted_ that there were ghosts here?" Drake and Beth looked at each other, chagrined, and Gosalyn gave them both a smug look. Morgana remained oblivious to this as she looked around the living room in a manner that suggested she was looking past the walls. "I should have been called some time ago! There's definitely more than just one spirit here!"

"I know," said Launchpad quietly. "There's somethin' in the walls, too." From his subdued manner, Beth could tell he was not particularly at ease. She took his hand, and he held it gratefully.

Meanwhile, Morgana had touched the wall next to the door, and now she nodded. "You're right. The house itself is containment for one, and the other seems to be more of a night-walker."

"Are they dangerous?" Beth asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

After a pause, Morgana answered, "The woman isn't. But something here is malicious. When are the emanations the strongest?" she asked, her voice taking on a professional quality.

"Er - around 2 am, I guess."

Drake nodded agreement, even though he'd only been there the one time.

Morgana seemed pleased by this. "Perfect. Then they'll be easier to keep under control at this hour of the afternoon."

As they gathered into a circle, Beth felt her courage dissolve that much more. "You said something here was ... evil?" she asked timidly.

Dismissively, Morgana answered, "Evil may be too strong a word... However, there is a strong sense of anger here. But the female presence is a separate one, and she's the stronger of the two. We'll contact her, and you'll have nothing to worry about." She smiled, and held out her hand. "Relax." Beth still felt doubtful, but took Morgana's proffered hand in her own free one. On her right, Launchpad's hand was sweaty and warm; by contrast, Morgana's was disconcertingly cool. Drake didn't seem the least bit bothered, Beth noted as her neighbour joined the circle. Gosalyn completed it, and the five of them stood unbroken as Morgana closed her eyes and began to speak.

"Hands vermilion, start of five  
Bright cotilion, raven's dive  
Nightshade's promise, spirits strive  
To the living, let now the dead come alive!"

Beth shivered at that last line. Morgana's voice seemed to take on an echoing quality as she continued, switching now to words which Beth couldn't understand. She kept her eyes closed, her back straight and her head lifted high; Beth tried to echo her posture, but found she just didn't have the confidence. She checked Launchpad - his eyes were closed as well, though she wasn't sure if it was as part of the ritual or because he was scared. Were her eyes supposed to be shut? she wondered suddenly, half in a panic. What if she was ruining the whole thing by keeping her eyes open? What if nothing happened and it was all her fault? What if something *did* happen, would that be worse?

Her breath caught, and her thoughts came to a screeching halt as the air before them thickened and shifted. What started with the same basic look as smoke rearranged itself, changed its looks, and Beth knew she was looking at a ghost being pulled onto their plane. She looked to Morgana, whose brow was now furrowed as she spoke the final lines. The words became English again, though they made little sense to Beth:

"As flies the lizard, serpent fell  
As goblin vizard at the spell  
Buried, dead, and slain - Rise again!"

And with that they all looked, and saw what Beth had seen forming: the woman in white, mistier than she had been the night before but still _there_. Her hair and robes flowed about her as though she were underwater; her legs faded into nothing before they reached her feet, and so she simply hovered in the air in the middle of the room, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open.

The woman from the newspaper article - the woman from her dreams. Looking at the faces of her friends, Beth was surprised to realize that, apart from Morgana, all the others recognized her as well. To Morgana, she whispered, "Will she... can she speak?"

"If she is spoken to," Morgana answered, her own voice just above a whisper. She looked pleased with her handiwork. "We could start by asking her name..."

"Stella," Beth answered, and the ghost opened her eyes and watched them. Her eyes were surprisingly bright, not the shadowed hollows which some movies suggested. "Aren't you? Aren't you Stella D'Oro?"

The ghostly woman didn't move - not even her mouth - but her voice, known to most of them from the night before, whispered "Yes," slowly.

"Whoa, keen gear! Can you make yourself look scary, like those ghosts in that movie where the people die and new people move into their house and the ghosts of the other people want to -"

"Gosalyn," Drake said, his voice a quiet warning. The ghost of Stella D'Oro looked back at them, appearing perplexed. Gosalyn looked chastened and fell silent.

Beth found, slightly to her surprise, that she wasn't as scared as she'd been before. This woman wasn't threatening... she was so sad, so normal. Well, aside from being see-through. To Morgana, she asked, "What else should we say?"

"We want to know why she's caught here, what her unfinished business is. Or if something is holding her here." After a moment, Morgana added, "If all else fails, we can try an exorcism." She nodded to Beth. "Ask her something."

"Right. Because it's my house, and... right." Beth swallowed. "Stella?"

The quiet "yes" which came in reply was almost just a breeze.

"Um..." Beth paused as Launchpad's hand seemed to become more slippery than it had before. She held it more firmly, hoping he could keep steady for a while longer. "Are you... are you trapped here? I mean... WHY are you trapped here?"

"Why don't you move on?" Morgana added, and Beth had to wonder irritably why Morgana hadn't just done the questioning herself to begin with.

The spirit sagged in midair and hung her head. "Malachai," came her voice, blowing past them almost tangibly. "His power... his revenge."

The misery in this reply made Beth's heart twist. Beside her, Morgana asked, "Who is Malachai?"

"Spirit..." the whisper replied. "Powerful... wicked."

Surprising herself, Beth blurted out, "Can we help you?"

Stella's ghost raised its head once more and looked her in the eyes. Beth was almost certain that Stella was as surprised by this offer as she'd been when she said it. "...Yes..." The voice was hesitant this time, almost reluctant. She looked ready to say more, but no words followed. Her eyes stayed with Beth's, and the message in them gave more understanding than her words could have.

"It has to be tomorrow, doesn't it?" Beth asked. It clicked into place. "We can free you tomorrow."

Almost mournfully, Stella answered. "Yes... but..."

She stopped again and reached forward towards them. Forgetting the others, Beth dropped Morgana's hand and reached back for her, stepping ahead of them. "We'll help you! I promise!" She didn't hear Morgana telling her to reform the circle until it was too late; she reached for Stella, and her hand passed through the figure as it returned to mist and was gone.

"Beth, don't touch her!" Launchpad said urgently, pulling her back towards him. Gosalyn and Drake crowded around her, and Morgana lectured her almost scoldingly about how dangerous it was to break the circle during a seance, about how she was putting herself at risk by doing something like that. Beth heard, but paid little attention. All she could think about was how she was going to free a spirit that had been trapped for over forty years.

* * *

"Okay, then. Tomorrow evening around 7 pm, we'll meet back here after Gos gets back from Trick-or-Treating and head over to Beth's." Drake's proclamation was met with a variety of responses: an agreeable nod from Morgana, a look just short of glee from Gosalyn, an expression on Launchpad's face that made him think they might need to get the smelling salts ready, and a very blank expression from Beth. "A-_hem_... Beth?" he prodded her verbally, and she came back from whatever mental plane she was visiting. "Seven tomorrow night, any objections?"

She blinked a few times, then nodded, her brow furrowed. "Um - no, sounds good. What - what exactly are we going to do?"

Morgana answered. "Well, first I'm going to look up Malachai - hope I have the spelling of that right - and see what can be done. It may just be a simple release spell... But if it's too complex..." She shifted uncomfortably. "Well, we might end up having to exorcise."

"Like... Sweatin' to the Oldies?" Launchpad asked hopefully.

"Er, no... Exorcising, as in performing an exorcism."

Launchpad blushed, and Drake rolled his eyes.

"Like the movie about the girl who gets possessed by the demon and her head turns all the way around and - uh -" Gosalyn paused, catching the look on Drake's face. "And, that was the movie Dad wouldn't let me see, so I only know about that stuff from, uh, a book."

Drake kept an eye on Gosalyn as he said, "That sounds good. Why don't we just do that, get rid of everything in the house at once and forget the research?"

"Well," Morgana said slowly, "we could... Exorcism _is_ a related spell, just... a lot more powerful. And permanent. And where a release spell would simply cancel out whatever's holding her there, exorcism is... well, it's like death for the dead."

"NO," Beth said firmly. Drake hadn't thought she'd been following the conversation, since she'd been silent since Morgana had started to go over their options. "We're helping her, not killing her. Or - killing her more."

Sounding a little worried, Morgana said, "I understand, Beth, but exorcism might be the only-"

"No. I mean it." Beth crossed her arms and looked at everyone else. "No exorcisms. At least, not for her. This is my 'resolved face'," she said to Drake. "You've seen it before, you know what it means!"

Drake turned to Morgana, and they exchanged looks. Finally Morgana nodded. "I'll find another way. I promise." Beth's expression softened a bit. "I really do have to go now, though," Morgana added, rising from her seat on the couch. "I don't want Father to get all snarly that I've been gone so long. Until tomorrow, Dark dearest," she said, as she bent and gave him a peck on his cheek, then rose and gave everyone else a smile. "Goodbye, everyone." She clapped her hands together, and vanished.

"I'm never gonna get used to that," Launchpad said a moment later. 


	10. Act X

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Nine:

At nearly eleven o'clock that night, the House on Avian Way was deserted. Its sole living inhabitant had packed her overnight bag much earlier and was settled in on the couch in front of the television in the Mallard house.

Despite its emptiness, however, the house wasn't still.

The lights had started just after sundown - now in one room, now the next, as though someone were running through the halls and testing the lightswitches. Neighbours, passing by the house as they walked their dogs or took an evening jog, stared as the living room, kitchen, and bedroom lights all went on at once and then flicked out again.

There was no one left out on the street by the time the noises started. Doors slammed, footsteps ran up and down stairs, objects fell and shattered. And all night, again and again, shadows ran down the hall upstairs, to the sewing room at the end of the hall, flung the door open, and slammed it shut.

No footsteps exited it.

From her bedroom window, Gosalyn strained to see past the interrupting form of the Muddlefoot's house. She could see lights, sometimes bright and strong, sometimes flickering like a candle; but if there was anything to be seen in the windows of Beth's house, it was hidden from her view. She gave up after about a half hour - though she continued to sneak looks every once in a while just in case her neighbours' house had mysteriously shifted a few feet - and settled into bed by midnight with the window open a crack just in case any screams floated out of the newly-active ghost house.

Downstairs, Beth remained blissfully unaware of the activity just down the street, and did her best to keep it that way. The TV was turned up louder than it needed to be, and she had made sure that she'd be keeping her back to her house the entire night - even two houses down and through several walls, she felt best if she wasn't even facing its direction. It was just a personal thing.

Drake had managed to get out and go on patrol for the first time in several days, and of course had taken Launchpad with him - not that Launchpad had been reluctant to go, of course, but Beth had been somewhat reluctant to let him leave. She was a bit worried about him. Launchpad could get himself so worked up over things, and he really was bothered by the idea of ghosts. Not to mention that, after the past three or four days, she was used to him being around and by this time she felt his absence like a hole.

Regardless, she did have to admit that it was the perfect time for Darkwing to go back out patrolling. She had been more or less single-handedly responsible for keeping him away from his job for the past couple of nights, and the fact that she was already staying over at his house that night meant not only that she was safe from harm, but that she could watch over Gosalyn, too. It was just like the old days, she thought, and chuckled to herself as she leaned her head against the arm of the couch. Good times.

When she slept, she dreamed nice dreams. Quiet dreams. The sort of dreams she liked - soft, happy, silly times with her friends. But there was always a blonde woman in the corner, watching her, with eyes full of sadness.

Beth woke up in the guest bedroom, just a little while after eight the next morning. She didn't remember what time she'd gone up, or if she had been led or even carried. But she'd slept comfortably with the blankets up to her chin, and her glasses had been set carefully on the table next to the bed.

It was October 31st.

* * *

"Check."

Drake stared at the chessboard for a number of seconds, then looked back up at Beth, then back down at the board. Narrowing his eyes, he moved his king one space over.

Beth moved another piece. "Check."

Another few seconds passed as Drake glared at the chess pieces again, scowling slightly. His routine from before was repeated, only this time as he raised a hand to move his king yet again, he suddenly stopped. "I can't take this anymore! Darkwing Duck wasn't made for _waiting_, he was made for _action_! Is anyone _else_ feeling ready to chew a hole through the wall?!"

Launchpad looked up from the card house that he had been working on for the last forty minutes. "I dunno, I'm kinda enjoyin' this." The card house, for all the time that had been spent on it, was still tiny; Launchpad didn't seem to be able to get many cards into it before it toppled over.

For her part, Beth said, "Does this mean we're not finishing the game?"

"It was a dull game anyway," Drake said quickly, and swept the pieces off the game board and back into their box. Beth sighed, and Drake continued, "If the two of you are too lily-livered to work on this case, I guess I'm on my own..."

"I don't know," Beth said, standing up from her seat on the couch. "I actually _was_ thinking of going over and seeing if I could find anything else out before Morgana comes by... So I guess we might as well, huh?"

Drake's eyebrows went up. "What?"

Launchpad's card house fell down, and he fumbled to pick up the cards as he looked at her, wide-eyed. "But, but didn't Morgana say we had to wait for her?"

"Well, I'm not going to try any _spells_ or anything," Beth said reasonably. "I thought I'd just look around. What did you have in mind, Drake?"

"Uh..." Drake, still looking surprised, cast his glance at the floor as he got to his feet as well. "W-well, I was thinking I'd call Morgana and see how she was doing, and then just help her with the research..."

"Oh." Beth looked over her shoulder at Launchpad, who was stacking his cards with great concentration. For lack of anything else to say, she added, "Okay."

"Besides," Drake went on with a chuckle, "you know Gos would kill us if we went over there without her. Heh, it was hard enough to get her off to school this morning, with all of this going on."

Beth nodded. "Right..."

She was off on another train of thought, Drake could see. She was back in her state of only halfway paying attention to the conversation, and to his surprise, the thought of what she was probably planning didn't sit right with him at all.

"You're not really goin' back over there, are ya?" Launchpad asked, surprising Drake by reaching the same conclusion he had himself.

Beth frowned and looked towards the door. "Just for a while."

"I don't think ya should," Launchpad said plaintively, rising from his chair. He looked to Drake for help.

Drake checked the clock. It was about 2 pm; Gosalyn would be getting home from school soon, and then the plan was for her to do her Trick-or-Treating early before it got too dark, and then by 7 pm they would all meet up with Morgana and head over to Beth's place. That was still hours away, and there just wasn't enough to do in the meantime. "Hey, it's your house," he said uncertainly. Launchpad looked unhappy, but Beth smiled gratefully.

"I'll be back soon," she promised.

With a nod, Drake turned away. "Let us know what you find out."

"Of course!" Beth waved at Launchpad and left.

Drake turned to see Launchpad looking at him reproachfully. "I don't think that was a good idea, DW."

"Relax, LP. She _wanted_ to go. You and I both know that when it comes to the spooky stuff, you're not exactly Mister Level-headed. I think you're overreacting here. What could happen to her in the _hour_ that she'll be out?"

* * *

Beth stepped into her house slowly. The lights were all off, and somehow the sunlight streaming in through the windows seemed weak. Well, it _was_ kind of overcast outside. She pushed the door open a bit wider, and felt resistance. Looking down, she saw the hallway rug was bunched up between the door and the small end table. She shut the door and straightened the rug, then looked around.

"Stella?" Her voice sounded weak and hollow in the empty house. She couldn't help feeling silly; part of her still held a belief that she was falling for someone's ridiculous prank, and that any moment now a neighbour or family member was going to jump out with a video camera and crow, "Gotcha!"

But it was true, wasn't it? Unless everyone in _town_ was in on it, Morgana included. She tried again. "Stella...? It's - it's me..."

A whisper in return. She heard it distantly, almost like a rustle rather than a voice. She strained to listen, and became confident that a woman was whispering somewhere. "Stella, I'm here. I want to talk to you." She fell silent and tried to stop breathing, listening for the answer.

It came from the kitchen: another whisper, louder than before. Maybe her voice and questions were giving Stella strength to reply. She strode into the kitchen and stopped, listening carefully. Nothing. *Had* she imagined...?

A breath, just behind her - definitely the sound of someone exhaling. Despite her confidence that Stella was the one who needed help, not her, Beth gasped and spun around.

Nothing.

She shivered and pulled herself together. Of course it was going to be spooky - she wasn't dealing with the living, here. Morgana treated it like it was no big deal, because ghosts were a part of her everyday existence; Morgana was a part of Drake's everyday existence, and Drake was a part of Beth's. Six degrees of separation, or something.

The whisper came again, from outside of the kitchen. She stepped back into her living room, letting the kitchen door swing behind her, and heard it again immediately. The words brushed by her, and she thought she felt her hair blow a teensy bit in an unfelt breeze. Then, right in her ear: _Beth._

She shuddered. "Yes! I- I'm here, talk to me! How can I help?"

Perhaps in answer, the door to the basement unlatched and swung slightly open. Beth sighed. Was there some reason this ghost couldn't just stay in one place? Mildly irritated, she opened the basement door, flicked on the lightswitch, and headed into the basement.

* * *

Beth flicked on a lamp, but the pool of light seemed to fall only in a dim circle just around the table its source rested on. The rest of the living room remained in shadows so strong they seemed almost dense.

She sighed. All that searching, calling, following voices, and for nothing. The air in the house was so still, yet charged with an energy waiting to be expelled; Beth could feel Stella's presence in every inch of the house, but it never seemed to be ready to come forth. How long had she spent going from room to room - walking, then running in the hopes of finally catching the spirit? She checked her watch: it was just after five pm now.

Five pm. Three hours she'd been here; she'd told the others she'd be no more than one. Why hadn't anyone called or come by? Despite the chill of the house, Beth had worked up a sweat as she'd combed every room, and now shivers ran down her back.

Something was very wrong.

How had she lost track of time this way? How had no one come to get her, as they had said they would? How was it so dark at only five o'clock?

A close glance out of the front window answered the last question. It had been raining earlier, and was clearly going to start raining again, soon. But this didn't put her any more at ease. For however long the rain had been coming down, she hadn't noticed it. She hadn't even thought to turn on any more lights. _Three hours,_ she thought. _It didn't feel like that long._ She could have sworn she'd only been in each room once, maybe twice - in and out each time. Something was definitely wrong.

She'd been wrong to come here. As overwhelming as the compulsion to come over earlier had been, she was now filled with an equally strong urge to leave. She put her hand on the doorknob, and almost pulled it away again. The contact came with an uncomfortable sensation of being grabbed. She looked over her shoulder quickly and saw nobody. Aloud, she said, "I'll - I'll come back. I just need my friends."

Lightning flashed through the windows, temporarily overwhelming the weak light from the table lamp, and an instant later thunder rolled heavily from the sky outside.

On its heels came a different rumbling, a thunder from within, as the table lamp dimmed and went out even as light began to gather in the middle of the room. It began as a glow, growing in size and shape, hitting the floor. The rumbling grew to a breaking point as the glow took on a form, solidifying with arms, legs, and a face. White robes surrounded the blonde woman, and an unfelt wind blew them one final time before the figure opened her eyes.

For a moment, neither woman spoke. Beth wasn't sure she could speak if she tried; she felt paralyzed. Their eyes met, and they stared at one another for a long moment in silence. Finally, the spell was broken.

"You're here," said Stella in a soft voice.

"Yes," said Beth, feeling as though that should have been her line. "I'm still here. I'm going to help you."

Stella shut her eyes, a look of misery on her face.

"No, it's okay!" Beth said hastily. "We know what to do. I have friends who will be coming - we know you're a captive here. We're going to set you free."

Stella didn't look any less unhappy when she lifted her eyes back up to Beth's, and for a moment Beth felt frozen by a fear she couldn't place. But before either woman spoke, there was another rumbling: once again, not of thunder. Stella's head turned anxiously upwards, towards the staircase wall. Beth followed her gaze.

Again the room dimmed, and light gathered at the top of the staircase, at the wall. Along with the rumbling came another noise: a voice, that seemed to be yelling from a distance. It became louder as the light and rumbling built, and the glow at the wall began to tear itself open. With a final triumphant shout, a masculine figure stepped out of the wall and paused to dust himself off.

"I'm BACK, babes!" he yelled.

Beth had time to recognize him as the tomcat whose picture she'd seen in the paper with Stella's, before Stella herself exclaimed, "Richie!" and ran to meet him on his way down the stairs. Laughing, he threw his arms around her and they hugged happily.

When he had set her down, his eyes fell on Beth. "Who's your friend?" he asked, jerking a thumb at her.

"Leave her alone, Richie," Stella said quietly, the happiness from a moment before retreating as suddenly as it had begun.

Beth felt lightheaded as the cat began to stare at her, smiling and apparently sizing her up. She took a step backwards. "I- I'm Beth Webfoot. I live here now." Richie nodded emphatically, still smiling unsettlingly. "Um..."

"You're confused," said Stella, smiling slightly in apology. "Richie Kaspar was my business partner - in a sense, anyway. He and I have been trapped here for so long, though, that we keep each other company."

"Even though we only get to see each other for one night a year," Richie snorted, turning his attention back to Stella. She rolled her eyes.

Frowning, Beth said, "The paper got it wrong. They thought you killed her and ran out."

"Ha! I _wish!_" exclaimed Richie, then chuckled nervously. "I mean - heh, not the killin' part, babes. Just the runnin' out part."

"He _did_ run," said Stella dryly. "He got scared and made a run for it -"

"I was goin' for help!"

"Right, Richie. That excuse hasn't been believable any year so far."

"Well, look, it's not like I made it far." He turned back to Beth. "I got all the way down the hallway before I got zapped with something. It wigged me out so much I just kept right on running, past the stairs, right through the wall. Been there ever since."

Realization dawned, belatedly, and Beth gasped. "You're the one who runs past my bedroom every night!" she blurted out.

"Kinda. It's not really me, it's a shade of me. This real me doesn't get out except once a year, and that's right now." His expression turned sly. "So, that's _your_ bedroom, huh...?"

"Richie," Stella chided, smacking him on his arm.

The cat grinned. "Hey, hey, look, I'm just happy, y'know? We finally get to get outta here." He looked at Beth again and smiled even wider than before. "Someone's finally stayed long enough."

The lightheadedness hadn't passed, and it took Beth a moment to realize he was talking about her. She tried to smile. "That's right," she said. "I'm going to help - I'm sure we can set you both free, not just Stella."

"Oh, I sure hope so," said Richie knowingly. There was something to his voice that hadn't been there before, and Beth's smile slid off her face. She looked to Stella, but the blonde wouldn't meet her gaze. Speaking as though Beth wasn't there, Richie said casually, "Y'know, she kinda had a point though, babes. I mean, there is only one of her - what if only one of us gets out?"

"Don't talk like that," Stella said, sounding disgusted.

"But it's important!" he insisted. Behind them, Beth put a hand to her head and leaned on the lamp table for support. "I did some thinkin, and if only one of us can get out, then I _promise_ I'll come back for ya next year, Stella."

Stella looked annoyed. "Richie!"

"What?" He looked as innocent as a cat could. "I really think it oughta be me that gets out, babes! I mean - y'know - _wall_... You know how long it's been since I've seen anything from the outside?" Stella sighed tiredly. "Okay okay, I mean, maybe we can work it so that I get to switch out from the wall, and **you** can come back for **me**... but really, babes, fair is fair, and -"

"We'll talk about this later," Stella cut him off. She and Richie both turned to Beth and stared at her. "This doesn't seem right to me," she said quietly.

Their voices seemed to be coming through a fog. Beth found that she wasn't sure she could stay on her feet much longer. What was happening to her? "I have to go," she said, speaking with difficulty. She felt like her head was stuffed with cotton. Richie and Stella seemed huge to her. She turned, with aching slowness, and reached her hand to the doorknob.

Behind her, Richie asked, "Has the spell been started?"

"It has," said Stella simply.

Beth saw the doorknob pass through her hand.

Alarmed, she tried again. She felt nothing, no resistance as her hand slid through the knob like a shadow. The last of her energy seemed to drain away, and she sank to her knees, staring at her hands. They were the slightest bit transparent. "What's happening," she whispered, but didn't have the energy to make it a question.

Richie stooped and picked her up, and she found herself going limp. "Let's get her up there, then."

"I don't like this," Stella said, quietly but firmly.

"Oh, me neither," agreed Richie lightly, as they started up the stairs. 


	11. Act XI

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Ten:

Launchpad was carrying a bowl of candy to the front door when three things happened at once: the clock struck five-thirty, a roll of thunder broke loudly, and Morgana appeared in the middle of the living room. He yelled and the bowl went flying.

Morgana watched calmly as a rain of "Fun-Size" candy bars landed on the carpet before her, then smiled apologetically at Launchpad. "Sorry. I probably should have called first."

"Yeah, usin' the front door might help, too," Launchpad mumbled as he stooped to pick up the candy from the floor. Then he sighed and indicated the candy. "Want some?"

"No thanks. I filled up before coming here." She winked, and he realized she was teasing him. He grinned in return.

"More for me, then." Turning to the stairs, he yelled up to Drake. "Hey, DW! Morgana's here, and you said to wake you up when she came!" He turned back to Morgana and explained, "He's takin' a nap."

"I am not!" Drake snapped, stumbling down the staircase while trying to put his costume on. "I mean, was not! I mean - I was doing... important... crime-related stuff!"

"Of course you were, darling," Morgana said sweetly, and gave him a peck on the cheek.

He beamed up at her before fixing his mask. "So, Morg, what did you find? Anything of interest?"

"More than enough," she answered, all trace of humour gone. She glided to the couch and sat down, Darkwing following her. Launchpad, meanwhile, parked himself by the front door so he could handle trick-or-treaters while he listened; the supply of candy bars dwindled steadily, mostly due to him.

Morgana pulled a large book out of nowhere and opened it to the middle. "The information available on Malachai isn't very extensive, but it's enough to tell that he's both a very powerful, and very dangerous, spirit." She pointed at the first page. "Roben's Spirit Guide identifies him as a 'Soul-Draining' spirit. Traditionally, spirits of this type were called upon for vengeance, and set upon criminals of the worst kind - murderers, sadists, that sort of thing. The spirit was summoned by priests and set upon the guilty one, who was then drained of his energy and life-force.

"Even when under tight control, these spirits are very dangerous. They require at least two people to perform the ritual: one to act as an Anchor and the other as a Director. The Director is actively involved, and the Anchor is protection, using their own magic to shield the Director from being drained themselves.

"Obviously, when Malachai was summoned - whoever did it, Stella or someone else - he was called forth improperly. No one was left to say the closing spell, the one that sends the spirit back to its original plane and seals the rift. Malachai was left with ties in this world and his own, and without direction as to which souls to take."

Launchpad jumped when the doorbell rang. "Uh, 'scuse me a sec," he said sheepishly, and answered the door.

Darkwing, meanwhile, took all this in. "So - what does this mean, Morgana? That this ghost is free to come and go all the time, anywhere it wants? In that case, why is this only happening now?"

"Well," Morgana said, pulling another book out of nowhere, "according to my sources on summonings and banishments, even a botched summoning spell has its own rules. Depending on what spell the summoner used, any number of limitations could be set on Malachai." She held off for a moment and looked back at Launchpad, who was seeing off the small group of rain-soaked trick-or-treaters. When his attention was back on her, she continued. "For one thing, it's very likely that Malachai's influence is limited to Beth's house - probably localized in the area where he was first called forth."

"It's not very localized now," Launchpad said with a shiver, remembering the past few days.

"Clearly," Morgana agreed.

Darkwing looked thoughtful. "No," he said. "It was localized - at first, anyway." He looked up at Launchpad. "Remember, LP? The sewing room. Something happened in there - that's where it all started."

Morgana nodded. "Malachai's power is obviously growing as it gets closer to the time of year the spell was performed. There was probably a temporal encasement built in to the spell, so that his power was uncontrolled for the first while, then diminished through the rest of the year.

"Stella's part in all this is hard to be sure of, but it seems as if, after her soul was drained, she was bound to the plane in the same way that Malachai was. She's very likely still acting as an anchor, and suffering a spiritual detainment in the place of her corporeal dissipation."

"Her what?" said Darkwing and Launchpad in unison.

"Her death."

There was another well-timed burst of thunder and lightning.

Uncomfortably, Morgana said, "Perhaps we should get started. I know it's a bit early yet, but -"

"No, you're right. Better to go now, while Gos is out. Much as she'll let me have it later, right now I don't think..."

"Without a doubt," Morgana agreed. "We should go while Gosalyn is still trick-or-treating. As soon as Beth gets here -" She interrupted herself, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Where _is_ Beth?"

Launchpad shot to his feet, and the unfortunate candy bars spilled onto the rug for the second time that night.

* * *

Darkwing pounded on the door but got no answer. "BETH! BETH, ARE YOU THERE?!" The rain was merciless, and another flash of lightning put them in brief illumination before leaving everything darker than before. "Launchpad, help me out here," he ordered. His sidekick set the baseball bat he'd armed himself with against the side of the house and joined him. They both rained blows at the door, looking like overzealous trick-or-treaters, while behind them Morgana held her hands to her temples and concentrated.

"The presence of the spirits is overwhelming," she said, her brow furrowed. "Even from here I can sense them - there are three, not just two. Malachai is the only malevolent one, but his evil may influence the other two to terrible acts." She opened her eyes and said determinedly, "We _have_ to get inside."

"That's it," said Darkwing, "this door's coming down." He backed up a step, then shoved it heavily with his shoulder. Launchpad followed suit. The door didn't even budge.

"Give me a moment, Dark, and I think I can-"

"No time!" Darkwing cut her off and backed up a few feet into Beth's front lawn. Getting a running start with all his weight behind it, he made a dash for the door.

Launchpad stepped out of the way just in time, and as Morgana uttered an echoing command of "Nepo rood!", Darkwing shot past her and through the now-open door. Launchpad winced at the crash.

"...See? I... got it...!" Darkwing called out to them. Morgana rolled her eyes, and Launchpad shrugged in return before picking up his baseball bat and joining them both inside the dark house.

No sooner had they all passed the threshold then the door slammed shut behind them. Darkwing jumped. Launchpad dropped the bat, scrambled to pick it up, then clung to it for dear life. "I hate it when they do that," he said quietly.

Morgana, on the other hand, cocked her head and smiled. "Oh, she has the same security system I do!"

"I don't think that was Beth's normal burglar protection, Morg," Darkwing said softly, looking around carefully.

The house was almost completely black, and the once-familiar living room in which they now stood had been transformed into a strange new world. The space seemed vast, but horribly confining, inspiring a sense of claustrophobia after a few moments within its walls.

Launchpad clutched his baseball bat and hefted it onto his shoulder. He hated to think of Beth alone in this place; heck, he hated to think of _himself_ in this place. He couldn't see anything dangerous, but it just felt ... wrong. Completely wrong.

In a whisper, Morgana said, "The spirit's force is centralized in one spot. Upstairs."

"The sewing room," Darkwing said. Morgana had clearly confirmed what he already knew.

"Good job, DW!" Launchpad whispered encouragingly. At least he could still do that, if nothing else.

Morgana nodded solemnly. "That's where we'll have to go."

* * *

Stella began her chanting as Richie found the middle of the room and set Beth down gently. She seemed only half-conscious, and didn't have the strength to stay upright on her own, so he crossed her arms for her and lay them on her stomach.

"Sorry 'bout this, kid. But forty years is forty years, and somethin's gotta give. After a while you'll do anything to get out... you'll see, you'll understand soon enough." She looked at him, and he felt uncomfortable. Taking off his glasses, he scratched his nose a bit and looked away from her. "I really am sorry 'bout this."

Behind him, Stella's spell had already called forth the pentagram and the candles. Malachai's own power was working, too: the walls had pushed themselves back, and the floor was changing. He'd seen this before; it was Malachai's preferred decor, and yet another thing he'd be glad to get away from.

Richie knew his role this time; when Malachai showed up, he was the one to do the talking, to direct the spirit's attention to Beth and to negotiate the trade-off.

Frankly, he really just wanted to run again.

* * *

Darkwing produced a flashlight and snapped the beam on, then swept it in a full circuit around the room. Nothing appeared out of place, although the shadows seemed to jump unpleasantly. "Here goes nothing," he said to himself, and swung the light up towards the stairs. The beam seemed to weaken as it stretched upwards. "Ready, team?"

"Ready," came Morgana's strong answer, followed by a weak mumble of assent from Launchpad. Their progress was halted before it began, however, as the stairwell seemed to change shape, leering forward and curving as if it followed the beam of light itself.

"Just... a trick of the light," Darkwing said, but his certainty seemed faltering. He took a step forward and yelped as his foot shot out from under him. He dropped the flashlight, and the bright circle skittered away from them.

"Dark!" cried Morgana. She suddenly found she had to kneel - the walls and ceiling were definitely closer than they'd been a moment ago, and now sloped down on them.

Launchpad cringed. "What's goin' on!?"

"The house is being physically transformed!" Morgana answered. She cast a quick spell and the flashlight jumped back to her hand. After searching with it for a moment she found Darkwing - but only briefly. Strangely, he was moving. She searched for him again and this time paced the light on him.

His motion wasn't his own. At first, she thought he was being dragged by an unseen force. But then he looped back around towards them, and she saw him trying to stand up. He struggled with his balance, and gave them a look. "It's like a funhouse," he said to the light she was shining at him. "The floor's moving."

"The walls are closer, too," Morgana answered. Turning to Launchpad, she cautioned him, "Be careful as you go. This is probably only the beginning."

She levitated herself over the floor, towards the staircase. Launchpad picked his way carefully behind her, and Darkwing made a shaky advance to the stairs. He set one foot on the first step, but froze as the stairs began to shake. Darkwing stepped back tentatively, just in time to avoid the fangs that came out of nowhere as the staircase became a giant mouth that snapped shut.

"Ooookay. We're obviously taking the elevator tonight, then." He looked over his shoulder. "Morg, could you...?"

Morgana spread her arms wide. "My pleasure."

The threesome shot straight up, and reached the balcony in seconds. Getting back onto solid ground, however, was less simple as the banister uprooted itself from the floor and began wrapping itself around them.

"No way!" Launchpad yelled, and swung the bat full-force. It splintered a few of the slats that were closest, and the rest of the banister fell back and landed on the floor below them.

Darkwing charged ahead. "Great job, LP! Stick together, everyone, and we'll - uh-oh." This last came as the hallway tightened itself around them, and began spinning. "Not the funhouse effect again," he said through gritted teeth. The hall had become a twisting cylinder, without top or bottom - but at the end was the sewing room, and they had to press onwards. "Okay, we did this once, we can do it again!" With mutual agreement, they began a careful path down the transformed hall.

* * *

Wind whipped Stella's hair about her face, flapped the sleeves of her robe in all directions, and threatened to drown out her voice as she held her chant. The candles' flames, mysteriously, remained upright and untouched.

"Malachai, bringer of destruction, I call you forth!" She narrowed her eyes, her focus absolute, and felt energy throughout her illusory body. "Malachai, father of chaos, I call you forth!"

Across the room, Richie watched her with admiration. "You still got it, babes," he said softly. Forty years hadn't changed her abilities at all - in fact, they had strengthened them. How many times they'd spoken, in their single nights together over the years, of doing this! The plan had begun to form at the third anniversary - or was it the fourth? During her usual accusations to him - that it was his fault for running out, that his cowardice had left them to this - he'd shot back that she'd been the one to miscast the spell. Malachai hadn't been held properly, so what was he supposed to do? If he had it to do over again, he said, _he'd_ do it right.

From there, the plan had started to shape itself. While alive, he'd been naive enough to pick a spirit at random to raise, without researching its personality; now, however, their positions led them to understand what Malachai was and what he needed. A trade, then: a new soul offered, new energy for Malachai to eat or whatever he did with it, and they could leave. They had nothing to lose this time, and so had no reason to fear. And Richie swore that it was nerves that had botched last time. This time he would get it right.

He looked around the room, wholly unrecognizable now from what it had been. It was a pit, hewn of rock. There were flaming torches in the walls, dirt floors, and an open space in the middle of the now-giant pentagram Stella was using in the summoning spell. That was where Malachai would enter, from the depths of whatever dimension he normally spent his days in. Not that he needed permission to come to this world - tonight of all nights he could come and go as he pleased. But the summoning told him that tonight, for the first time in forty years, there was something worth checking out.

Stella looked beautiful and powerful and dangerous as she yelled over the wind that touched nothing but herself. Beth, incapacitated at Richie's feet, curled herself into a little ball. Richie thought of doing the same.

* * *

The spinning tube halted abruptly, as if it had realized that it wasn't detaining the people traversing it. Only Morgana avoided tripping, levitating as she was; Darkwing and Launchpad both fell to their right.

Pulling himself to his feet, Darkwing said, "Looks like we showed this spook-house who's boss!" A crack beneath him was all that preceded the decaying arm that burst through the curved floor and grabbed at his leg. He shouted and whacked at it with his hand, and it broke. Anxiously, he pulled a frozen Launchpad forwards and took Morgana's hand. "Let's just get out of here, huh? Sound good?"

"Good to me," Launchpad said breathlessly.

There was a whooshing noise behind them, and Morgana turned to see objects flying at them through the air - books, lamps, even small tables. She rolled her eyes. "We're definitely getting close, and we're most certainly a threat or else he wouldn't be trying so hard!" she yelled over the increasing winds.

"Gee, how reassuring," Darkwing shot back. He kept pulling them both toward the door at the end of the tunnel. On either side of them, hands forced their way through the thinning walls of the passageway, grabbing at them as they ran. Launchpad began to slow, and Darkwing had to tug harder to get him to keep pace.

"Ow! Somethin' got me!" he shouted, sounding very close to panic. Darkwing grit his teeth and yanked, throwing himself at the doorway. Beneath them, the floor began to crumble, falling away in pieces bit by bit.

All three hit the door at the same time, and burst through it in a heap that ended with Darkwing, naturally, on the bottom. In front of them was a startled man in dark glasses, who stared at them with a baffled expression before running to a willowy figure in white. After a moment Darkwing recognized her as Stella D'Oro, looking much healthier than she had the last time he'd seen her.

He was surprised a moment later to see Morgana rush past him. It figured that she wouldn't be laid up for long, although it still felt like he was at the bottom of an entire football team. "Launchpad, get UP!" he grumbled, elbowing every way he possibly could.

Sheepishly, Launchpad scrambled to his feet. "Sorry, DW." His attention was focused in the middle of the room, and Darkwing didn't have to glance more than briefly to know that was where Beth was.

He snapped back to face Morgana, who had reached the two ghosts and now grabbed the hands of the woman. "Stop, before it's too late!"

"It is too late," said Stella, her hair swinging about her face as though she was standing in the lessening remnants of a gale-force wind. "You don't understand," she said, not without compassion. "We _had_ to call Malachai-"

A sudden deep rumbling interrupted them all. Morgana looked crestfallen, and Stella very nearly echoed that expression. Only Richie looked hopeful at the arrival this noise predicted - and that hope was heavily weighted with terror.

In the gaping hole within the summoning pentagram, a mass began to take shape as dark wisps, somewhat like smoke, gathered together and started to knot themselves into a ball. It quickly became evident that the spirit was huge - easily bigger than any other being in the room. 


	12. Act XII & Epilogue

**Darkwing Duck: "The House On Avian Way"**

* * *

Chapter Eleven:

Only Launchpad wasn't focused on the great force before them as it bolstered its power. He abandoned Darkwing and made his way to Beth. From far away it had been hard to see her, as though she were a long distance from him - but up close he found that had been both illusion and reality. Beth was closer than she'd seemed... but no easier to see. "Beth?" he said tentatively. She didn't seem to hear him. Her eyes were tightly shut; if not for the tension in her face, she could have been dead. Trembling, he reached a hand to her arm and tried calling her name again. It came out no louder than a whisper. "...Beth?"

He made no third effort, since his hand passed through her.

* * *

Malachai was a vast space of nothing, a blot of emptiness that now opened two enormous black eyes. The eyes fixed on the visitors in its domain, taking them in with an expressionless stare that somehow conveyed greed and malicious glee. Morgana spoke softly. "Do you know what you've done?"

Stella stepped forward with a look of resolve, and met Morgana's eye. "We had to summon Malachai... so that we can banish him once and for all."

"What?!" Richie leapt forward. "Stella, NO! That wasn't the plan -"

Stepping away from him, Stella frowned and shook her head. "It was my plan. If you won't help me I'll do it alone."

"You won't have to," Morgana said quickly. "I'll be your anchor. Give me your hands."

"**NO**!" Richie bellowed, as Malachai's eyes widened and a deep roar began from the bottoms of the house, working its way up with a violent physical effect on the house. The floor-turned-earth buckled beneath them and began to pull itself apart as Stella spoke the first words of the banishment spell. Richie fell to his knees.

To Darkwing, however, this balancing act was nothing new after the tunnels they'd been sent through. "Morgana! What is this?!"

Her face lined with concentration, Morgana spoke with her eyes shut. Her voice was strangely resonant. "Stella is casting the spell to revoke the spirit's claim to this plane. He will fight us. I am using my own power to strengthen hers."

Malachai roared again. He couldn't be seen to move, yet every tremor seemed to be an echo of a struggle, a push from him against his constraints. Darkwing looked around the room; it was an echo of Malachai's revolt, destroying itself as testament to his fury. Launchpad was across the room, next to a faint shape. With a sudden jolt Darkwing recognized the shape as Beth. As he watched, a blue field surrounded her, dancing about like electricity, and the ground split between her and Launchpad.

"DW!!" Launchpad yelled, turning toward his friends. "Help her! She's fadin' away!"

Darkwing turned back to Morgana, again addressing her. "What's happening to Beth?"

"Malachai will gain strength by draining her soul, as he did to Stella and Richard years ago. He will do this to any living being he can capture."

The way Morgana answered made Darkwing sure that she wasn't consciously giving this information. It was a little like talking to a computer: ask a question, get a factual answer. But you have to ask the right question. "Will he drain us now?"

"Stella and I are protecting everyone. Our souls are safe; Beth is beyond such help. If she is drained before Malachai is defeated, she will cease to exist on our plane."

Darkwing gulped. "Can I help her? Launchpad can't even touch her."

"Keep Malachai distracted. It will slow her rate of spiritual dissipation. We do our part; you must do yours."

It was enough, he supposed. Not a lot to go on, but he could put the rest together; he was Darkwing Duck.

The divide between Launchpad and Beth had widened. Launchpad was trying, but failing, to reach an arm all the way across.

That wasn't the way to save her, Darkwing knew. He steadied himself and made a run straight at Malachai. "Hey, ya big ball of gas!" he yelled. An eye rolled in his direction and centred on him angrily. "What are you, the Patron Ghost of Dustballs? If you're going for 'scary' you need to refine your image, pal!"

The roar that resulted had a definite tone of irritation to it. Darkwing had to duck as a lightning bolt shot over his head, followed by a shower of rocks. "Ha! Hate to tell you, Mally, but your aim _stinks_!" He tossed a rock back, and it hit the spirit square between the eyes and bounced off. The roar, this time, held muffled fury.

"Hey, whattaya know, he's _solid_," Darkwing muttered, mildly surprised, before something tackled him to the ground. Another lightning bolt scarred the ground where he'd been.

"I will not," said Richie furiously, "_not_ let this happen!" He pinned Darkwing to the ground, snarling. "I'm not gonna stay like this for eternity! I didn't ask for this and I don't like it! Malachai's gonna get what he wants, I'm gonna get what I want, and you and your friends and even Stella can all get stuck here forever for all I care as long as _I get out_!!" He thrust Darkwing's head into the dirt to punctuate his sentence.

Darkwing sputtered, and pushed off from the ground into a roll. Richie lost his balance and fell to one side, but jumped back up again a moment later and renewed his attack. The cat didn't have any clear intent other than to fight.

* * *

Another tremor hit, and to the side, the ground broke apart further. The more distant side sank into the ground, and Launchpad cried out in frustration. He'd nearly been able to reach her, for a split second... Not that it mattered, not that it made a difference when he couldn't even touch her to save her.

He strained harder. He wouldn't give up, not ever, not even when he could no longer see her, even though he didn't know what to do when he got to her. He didn't know what to do at all, about anything - to get Beth's house back to normal, to get her solid again, to make the evil ghost leave, or to reach her... but he had to do _something_. At least he could be _near_ Beth, right?

There was another tremor, and her ledge began to crumble. And Launchpad saw the pit that was opening beneath Beth, opening like a mouth underneath her, complete with a red tongue of lava, and lots and lots of teeth.

* * *

"DARKWING! I'm LOSIN' HER!"

His sidekick's yell sounded like it was just over his shoulder, and Darkwing was reminded of the actual physical size of the room they were in; despite Malachai's manipulations of the room's dimensions, sound carried the same way it would have in Beth's sewing room, modifications or no.

He slugged Richie and turned from him. Beth wasn't even in sight anymore; Launchpad was hanging halfway over a giant hole in the ground. Darkwing's opponent righted himself amd grabbed at his cape, but Darkwing was through. Turning, he slugged Richie again. "Now listen, pal!" he growled, grabbing Richie by the short lapels of his jacket and shaking him. "I don't know what you've been through. I don't _care. She_ cared, and now she's paying for that kindness."

"I - I don't-"

Darkwing shook him again. "Save it! I'm running out of time because of you." He dropped Richie, who landed roughly. By the time the cat had propped himself up on an elbow, Darkwing was already out of his range and by Launchpad's side.

"Can you reach her?" Launchpad asked hopefully. "I been trying, but it just keeps gettin' lower, and -"

It was an impossible task. Darkwing lied. "I think I can swing over and get her off there." He couldn't move her from anywhere, not if she was intangible. "No problem, LP." The lady or the tiger, it seemed. No time to get her solid before she falls, no way to keep her from falling without touching her. Darkwing swallowed. "I can do this."

* * *

Richie watched. He didn't breathe, but _something_ felt caught in his throat. Forty years, it had been... Forty years of lost time, of claustrophobic awareness, of dust and anger and fear.

And, he realized suddenly, there would be more.

He stood up, and cursed. "I'm going to _hate_ myself for this later," he muttered, and strode forward resolutely.

_This isn't fair._

He grabbed Darkwing's collar, jerking him backwards.

_I never asked for this._

The duck spun around, throwing a punch as he went. Richie sidestepped it, barely, and pulled Darkwing forward, throwing him off-balance for a moment.

_Not fair._

The moment was enough for Richie to toss him towards Malachai. The mass of spiritual energy hulked even larger than before, groaning and straining against the circle it was bound in. "You stall 'im!" Richie yelled as Darkwing flailed off in Malachai's general direction. He slapped the other duck on the back, a bit harder than was warranted. "No sweat, chum, the lady's as good as rescued."

He took a flying leap off the ledge, ignoring the teeth jutting in his direction, and drifted downwards to the charred spot of rock Beth Webfoot was lying on. She was motionless. He picked her up gently, and studied her face. "Ya don't fool me, babes. I know you're still in there. You can fight it better than _that_." He pushed off again as the rock isle crumbled at last, and a loud *snap* shot after him as the evil teeth made a last effort to catch their prey.

"Give the boss a run for his money, at least," he whispered into her ear, and patted her cheek. Then he set her down next to the male duck, who was staring. "Take care'a her."

"I - can't touch her."

Richie shrugged. "Talk to her, then."

"Will it help?"

"What do I look like, a medium?" Richie asked with a snort. "Look, I gotta go, figure it out for yourself."

* * *

The point, Darkwing knew, was to distract Malachai so that Morgana and Stella could wear him down. This, unfortunately, was easier said than done. As of now he was stuck clinging to the side of a spirit that was throwing a devil of a temper tantrum, and below him was a pit that was very likely bottomless.

So, without any other ideas, he just continued clinging and hoped it was distraction enough. It really wasn't one of his better moments in his crime-fighting career, but it wasn't as if his crime-fighting career had given him a lot of practice for ghost-busting.

"Ride 'em, cowboooooy!" came a loud call, and Malachai's bulk gave a sudden jolt backwards. A moment later, Richie scrambled into view. "How's the view up here, anything special?"

"What do you want?" Darkwing asked, trying to look menacing even though he knew it was obvious he was holding on for dear life.

"I already said, I just wanted to check out the view!" The cat's face was unreadable, especially behind the sunglasses he was still wearing. "'Course, if there was anything I could give ya a hand with, you'd let me know, right?"

There was something almost embarrassed about Richie's manner that gave Darkwing a sense of sincerity from the cat. He took a risk - this once, he could use the help. "Well, if a guy were to, say, want to distract an evil spirit from taking over the world, is there anything you'd recommend he do?"

Richie thought for a moment. "Well, it'd probably hate this," he said, and stuck his foot into one of the spirit's huge eyes. There was a corresponding roar from Malachai, and their perch rocked so violently that Richie nearly went flying off across the room. He yelled out, jubilantly, as he was bucked about.

Darkwing found, oddly, that he was almost enjoying himself as well. Richie - far more nimble while crawling around Malachai's form than Darkwing was - took hold of the spirit's other side and began to swing. Darkwing caught the cue and swung in opposition, and Malachai's roughly spherical form began to rock back and forth like a tethered stone.

Stella, halfway through her spell below, felt it begin to take. Strength seemed to redouble within her, and she smiled as she continued to chant.

* * *

Launchpad almost had a hold on Beth's hand. As it was, he wasn't exactly touching it, but she wasn't passing through him anymore either. He ignored the action behind him - the eyes on that ghost gave him the willies. "C'mon, Beth, we're waitin' for ya. Wake up. C'mon, you can do it!"

She stirred, just barely, and her eyelids fluttered. "Beth! You can hear me, can't you? Fight! You gotta!"

He still couldn't feel her hand, but her almost-invisible fingers closed around his own. And - they weren't almost-invisible anymore. They were paler than usual, almost smoky, but... He looked into her face. He could _see_ her better than before.

He reminded himself to breathe and to keep talking. "That's right, you're doin' great. Just keep goin', Beth, don't give up..."

* * *

The black mass beneath Darkwing roared in anger, and Darkwing slowly sank into it.

Alarmed, he looked to Richie. "What the heck -?!"

Behind his glasses, the cat's eyes were wide as well. "Uh, this looks bad, pal," he said, his voice deceptively light. "Maybe we should-"

He couldn't finish the sentence before Malachai's bulk turned ephemeral, and they shot through him like bowling balls through smoke.

Darkwing didn't need to think to act - which was lucky, because as he passed through the spirit he was wiped clean of all thought. The cold cut through his jacket, through his feathers, straight to his bones; and beyond that, cutting into his heart, was a deep hatred. Somehow it made him want to throw up.

His hands worked independently of his mind, however, and before he was all the way through Malachai he had his gas gun in hand and was shoving a grappling hook into it. A second later, he'd fired, and the hook swept up past the edge of the pit and lodged itself firmly in the ceiling, with more force than he'd have thought possible.

The gun's line put an abrupt end to his fall, and Malachai kept screaming above him, and he'd lost track of Richie. There was no time to figure out what had happened to the cat. He struck the retractor switch and the gun wound the line back in, vaulting him up out of the pit and towards the ceiling.

Darkwing shut his eyes and tensed. This was going to hurt.

* * *

Stella's face was pinched as she repeated the last lines of the spell over and over and over.

Launchpad almost shouted as Beth's fingers clenched around his hand, and he could feel her squeezing him.

Morgana's fingers dug into Stella's wrists as she poured all her energy into backing the spell.

Malachai howled, a sound that seemed to come from the depths of death itself, and his mouth opened, wider, wider, swallowing his face.

Beth opened her eyes and gasped.

* * *

Malachai disappeared, but his final scream went on and on. It ripped through everything, deeply, painfully; the walls began to crumble, and every living person in the room felt as though their bodies were pulling themselves apart as the scream pulsed through them.

And then it stopped.

Darkwing fell roughly to the ground, yelling reflexively, and opened his eyes to find that it was dark. "Morgana!" he cried - or attempted to cry, since actually it came out as more of a groan as he painfully got to his feet.

In answer, the overhead light snapped on.

The room was rather small, somewhat cozy, with very blue curtains on the windows. There were a few swatches of brightly coloured fabric strewn about haphazardly, and a dress dummy lay prone in the corner. Morgana let go of the light switch and looked around, her expression showing satisfaction despite her obvious exhaustion. He followed her gaze across the room to see Launchpad holding Beth tightly, where she still lay on the ground. Darkwing's momentary worry was relieved when he saw that she was holding him back, and he relaxed.

"This was a very productive Halloween," Morgana sighed.

Darkwing smiled at her and took her hand. "You did good, Morg," he said softly.

"I know," she said slyly, and returned his smile. "So did Stella." She looked into the distance wistfully.

Darkwing looked around the room as it dawned on him that the two ghosts were gone. "Are they... okay?"

"Better than okay," said Morgana. "They're free."

Darkwing nodded in agreement. Suddenly he felt very tired as well. Stil holding her hand, he pulled her towards the door. "I say you and I've earned some down-time, Morg... How about we- GAH!"

Stella and Richie stood just outside the sewing room, the former looking sheepish, the latter violently annoyed.

"Ah... Hello," said Stella. "We thought we'd give you a few moments to recover. Everyone alright?"

Darkwing looked accusingly at Morgana. "I thought they were gone!"

Morgana frowned. "I never said they were gone. You didn't even _ask_ if they were still here."

"It was sort of implied in what I --"

"Maybe we should give you a few more minutes," Stella interrupted, and sank through the floor. Darkwing swallowed. After everything they'd been through, that _still_ made him a little nervous.

Richie remained, and glared at them both. "I want you to know that I'm _not_ happy," he said, and pointed an indignant finger at Darkwing. "I _still_ can't touch anything!" Stella popped back up through the floor, grabbed him by the foot, and pulled him down with her.

* * *

Epilogue:

Stella smiled, looking serene. Sun filtered down through the kitchen window and shone through her hair. "November 1st," she said happily. "I never thought I'd see another November 1st."

"Forty years of Halloween. Lemme tell you something, babes, it loses its charm." Richie, sitting across the table from her, pointed a finger emphatically as if he were making an important point.

"Lesson learned, then, eh Richie?" Stella smiled teasingly. "No more 2am Halloween seances?"

Richie snorted. "Oh yeah, 'cause I was really plannin' on havin' another one, seein' as how I'm _dead_ and all."

"Sour grapes," was Stella's only reply. She beamed up at Beth as the living woman set a teacup down in front of her. "Thank you. I missed tea. Wonderful weather for it, too."

Beth, looking only slightly unnerved by the very well-felt presence of two ghosts in her kitchen, seated herself at the table as well. "But you can't drink it, can you? You can't touch anything anymore."

Stella shook her head. "No. But I remember it, and that's enough." She passed her hand through the teacup briefly, as easily as if she were passing it through the steam rising from the tea.

Richie grumbled. "And now we're stuck like this. No bodies, no lives, nothin' - ghosts, forever. I can't believe I _saved_ you." He glared at Beth, who smiled back nervously.

"Don't mind Richie," said Stella. "He knows perfectly well that there was no way for us to get our bodies back - Morgana explained it, after all, that our bodies ceased to exist when Malachai first trapped us."

Richie grunted.

"I think he likes you," Stella said.

Beth cleared her throat, obviously to change the subject. "So... are you really _stuck_ here? I mean, is it really forever? I, not that I'm, you know, trying to get you to leave or anything, just..."

"We don't really know." Stella stared down at her teacup.

"Feels like forever," Richie muttered, and tried to lean on the tabletop. This only resulted in his elbow passing through the wood, and he fell through to the floor. Rising back up, he growled, "I **hate** that!!"

Continuing as if Richie hadn't spoken, Stella said, "Morgana said we should be able to move on soon, now that the spell has been broken and we're not bound here. But I don't know when, or to where."

Richie was levitating on his own now, cross-legged, a few feet from the kitchen table. "Just so long as it's not to another house, I'll be -" He stopped. A light grew about him, surrounding him with softness until he was bathed in it. His first reaction was to look fearfully to Stella. "Babes?! What's..."

"Richie?" she whispered.

Beth, puzzled, looked between the two of them. She saw nothing.

The light poured down, and Richie looked up into its source. He took his glasses off.

"Richie?? Does it hurt?"

He didn't answer for a moment; then, in a quiet voice, he said, "Stel... I wish you could see this... It's beautiful." The light became pure, too intense to see through - then, it faded. And Richie was gone.

Neither Beth nor Stella spoke for a moment. Stella looked at once shaken and expectant.

Beth broke the silence. "Where... did he go?"

"I'll find out, I suppose."

More silence. Stella watched the teacup again, as Beth wondered if she should say anything at all. Finally, to fill the emptiness, Beth asked, "Why did you ever take up with Richie in the first place?"

Stella smiled fondly. "Oh, he's not so bad. I mean, once you get used to him."

Nervously, Beth backtracked. "Oh, I - I didn't mean to say that he was, I just - "

Laughing, Stella said, "That's okay. Until you get used to him, he _is_ that bad." Her voice dropped, and more softly, she said, "I met him through a want-ad... he wanted to start a chain of psychic counselors through a partnership with a medium. Neither one of us was as experienced in the actual contacting of spirits as we made ourselves sound. When I first met him, I couldn't stand him... but after that night, he was all I had.

"The first few years, when we realized we could see and talk to one another again for one night, we'd spend the time planning how to get out. That was when we came up with the plan to pass our curse onto someone else - we figured only another couple of years down the road someone would wander in, someone we could use in our own place. That was when I first cast the spell that caught you: that any living being in the house on October 31st would be an offering to Malachai.

"But the years went by and no one came. We stopped planning then; we became friends." Stella smiled, with tears in her eyes. "He told some wonderful stories, though I doubt they were true. But they were entertaining, and that was enough." She shook her head suddenly, pulling herself out of her memories, and turned to her host. "I thank you, Beth. You did for us, willingly, what no one ever did before. And looking back, after all is said and done... I have no regrets."

Beth smiled in return. "Well, I just did what anyone would do. Or _should_, in any case. You know. It was..." She stopped. "You're welcome."

Stella nodded and glanced upward. Her eyes filled with wonder. "It _is_ beautiful," she whispered. She shut her eyes.

And then, she was gone.

Beth's smile fell, and a chill ran down her spine. She sat, suddenly alone, in the silence.

The cup of tea still sat, untouched, and the steam rose toward the heavens.

**End.**

* * *

**See my profile page for links to chapter notes and references for this fic. ^_^**

Story and situation 2000-2005 by R. L. Kelly. All characters the Walt Disney Co. except Beth Webfoot, Stella D'Oro, and Richie Kaspar, all of whom are the creation of the author. This story is the property of R. L. Kelly, and may not be copied, distributed, archived, or altered from its original form without express permission of the author (and that's me!). A thousand thank-yous to Amanda Rohrsson and Jess Guy for their attention to detail and help in polishing this story! When I run out of clever things to say in my disclaimers, the heavens themselves do weep. Alas!


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